Feel Like You're Losing Your Mind? Yes, it Really Could Be Your E-Commerce Job

The other day I was flipping through the Atlantic Monthly.  Actually all I ever do with magazines anymore is flip through them. I never actually read them.

The cover story, titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" caught my attention.  It's worth a read. That is, if you have the attention span for a six page article. 

No offense intended...of course you can get through six pages. It's just that Nicholas Carr's article will help validate that those feelings  you've been having of impatience and inability to focus may indeed be real, and may indeed be caused by the internet.  If you spend most of your day online like I do, you get accustomed to accessing information at warp speed and skimming through sound-bites of data to get things done.  But then, sadly, you realize that you've lost your ability to take things in at a "non-internet" pace. 

Just like Carr suggests, I too have noticed that it's become harder for me to sit and read a long book, something that I love to do.  I'm so used to being able to cut to the chase that reading through paragraphs to get to the plot seems inefficient. In truth, I now only read full books when I'm on vacation for exactly this reason. 

So, is this bad? Not entirely, according to the article. The brain, it appears, is quite malleable, and adjusts to things like our intake of data and consumption of media. The internet's impact on our brain activity is probably neither good nor bad, it just causes us to behave differently.   

Carr does a great job of comparing the concerns about the internet's impact on our brains to numerous industrial developments throughout history, such as the typewriter and the printing press. Many back then said that the proliferation of written documents and books would negatively impact memory.  It's probably fair to say that the expanded access to written information has had a profoundly positive impact on the human experience, regardless of what it's done to our memories.  After all, do we really need to remember everything if we can look it up in a book?   

The internet may be changing the way people read (or avoid reading), but I think we'd all agree that it's profound impact on our lives has been overwhelmingly positive.  Nonetheless, as marketers we need to be increasingly alert to how our own behavior (and our customers' behavior) is changing as a result of increased internet consumption.  It means communicating with customers in a way consistent with the way they are reading;  abbreviated text messages, mono-syllabic search ads, tickers on the tv screen, pop up ads, interruptive alerts. 

So, in a shameless example of practicing what I preach, if  you find that reading this blog is too lengthy and laborious a task, you can now follow me on Twitter, where you can read my musings about e-commerce in satisfying bites of 140 characters or less.   

Comments

[ecommerce recruiting]

Great post. What was it about?

Just kidding!

I have noticed the same thing when I read online vs offline. I seem to metabolize offline information differently -- which might be because I read all paper-based media with a highlighter and am usually in a more relaxed, focused state of mind when I do. Also, perhaps it's the quality of my offline media diet (good books, business magazines, the WSJ). Most of what's online is noisy and only partially informed ...

And another thing: With online material, very often my hands are on my keyboard waiting to type a response to what I've just read. Certainly, the "pause" part of "stimulus ... pause ... response" metabolic process seems to be longer in offline situations. I'm sure that impacts retention.

Again, nice post.
Harry Joiner

[Sally McKenzie]

Thanks for the comments, Harry. Of course, I only had time to skim what you wrote, but I assume it was complimentary. (kidding, of course!)

[Jenny Sanders]

Hey Sally,

Your post reminded me of something I noticed at a concert a little while ago. This particular show drew lots of college-aged kids, and during all of the hit songs, everyone was really into the music. The really weird thing was that the minute a lesser-known song was played, many of them whipped out their mobile phones and started texting, essentially ignoring the performance. It was like they couldn't hold their attention without being able to hit "next song" on their iPod, so they found other ways to use that time. While I have noticed my own behavior adapting to "internet pace", I've found it to be even more strikingly noticeable with younger people who have really never known any other way, even in their "offline" lives. I hate to admit it felt like a generation gap. (Generation A-D-D?) Which as you point out, has definite marketing implications.