Attention Spans

 

My children, apparently, belong to Generation Z.  That is, they were born between the mid 90’s and early 2010’s.  I, on the other hand, am a Baby Boomer!

The other evening my youngest son told us that the average attention span of his cohort, sometimes also known as the Tiktok Generation is 50 seconds.  So, when using their Smart Phones or other Social Media devices, the article or sales pitch has to grab their attention pretty fast before they inevitably move on.

I’m not sure where that leaves the twenty-minute, three-point sermon in church?!  It’s hard to see how complex issues, the sort that make up everyday life, can really be grasped in such a short time frame.

I was having coffee this week with a ministerial colleague who told me of plans for his upcoming Sabbatical.  He and his wife are hoping to do the Camino de Santiago, a walking pilgrimage through France and Spain called the Way of St James, ending up in the cathedral at Compostela.  This isn’t going to be quick!  Indeed, they have given themselves 40 days.  It’s an intentional pilgrimage and everyday will bring fresh surprises as they travel alongside fellow pilgrims sharing walking time, meals and hostel accommodation together.  Their prayer is that into this measured and ‘slow’ experience they will discover new things about God and themselves. 

We are almost through the season of Epiphany when, among other things we recall the biblical story of the visit of the Wise Men.  It’s surely significant to note their journey was also a long one, taking probably up to five months to travel 500 miles.  Yet they kept going and didn’t give up.

All generations, not just the Z one but also Baby Boomers like me, need to realise that life is a marathon and not a sprint in which some of the lessons that take the longest time to learn turn out to be the most important.