I recently googled a journalist friend, Gary Arlen, and found a piece he wrote from June of 2006 covering the Digital Media Conference. One of the speakers referred to the “Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) generation”. Here how Gary encapsulated the concept:

While the policy sessions generated passionate arguments, the conference’s content and business panels underscored the revitalization of the interactive business itself. Chris Maxcy, VP-business development of YouTube, acknowledged that his site is now serving up to 70 million streams per day, with typical sessions averaging one to two minutes long – and thus catering to the ADD generation.

The term “ADD generation,” as you probably figured out, describes an apparently younger demographic that only pays attention to media in short spurts (generally less than two minutes). The phrase was once all over the web, but strangely the most recent reference I found about the “ADD generation” was almost a year ago. Where is the ADD generation today?
Maybe we replaced it with another term, but I didn’t get the memo. More likely, it’s faded because it was never really applicable. The consumption of media under two minutes is the norm, constituting the mobile and online media experiences we all have with increasing frequency, but they are nothing new.

Short form media enthusiasts have been around since 60s political news coverage; the political sound byte engineered for broadcast tv and radio news was perfected for a public that could only absorb information in increments of 60 seconds or less. As soon as the news started cutting 5 minute statements into 15 second sound bytes, politicians wised up and began placing natural pauses before and after their desired sound byte. Broadcast news evolved for the public–and then those interviewed evolved.

As communications technologies progressed that same “sound byte” evolution applied to quotes online and then eventually audio files and video. The last person to the party was entertainment media. Could you imagine a broadcast or cable network or even program that just ran snippets of funny or engaging video? Did you say no? If so, you have forgotten a staple of TV during the 70s and 80s. How about network blooper shows or America’s funniest videos.

It goes to a matter of interest — not distribution technology. I don’t watch a 30 second video on YouTube because it is the only place I can see it (although it is the only place I can see it whenever and wherever I want). I watch that video because whatever it’s content I don’t want to watch it for five minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. If the video was about my interests, maybe I would watch it for an hour, but I could watch that hour on broadcast/cable TV, online or TivoCast (my new favorite service).

The ADD generation is gone because it never was. As a culture, we’ve been evolving toward shorter content bursts since electronic media emerged. Sure, we’ll dig in for longer experiences if they really suit our interests. Otherwise, if you want anyone to pay attention – regardless of age demographic – keep it simple, straightforward, and short.