# The Limits of 20 Minutes per Day By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-08-17 The late comedian Norm McDonald has an old bit about watching the news. When he was younger, he would watch the local news that ran for only about 20 minutes after removing the commercials. Later he would watch cable news channels such as CNN or Fox News only to find out that they only had 20 minutes worth of news to share. Instead of covering new topics, these news channels would repeat the same report slightly differently. In Norm's estimation, the world only generated 20 minutes of news per day worth sharing. Unpacking this a little further, we come across several dynamics. First, there is certainly more than 20 minutes of news per day, but what is news worth sharing? Who decides what is included in those 20 minutes? Are there news "tastemakers" who choose, or is there some emergent cultural selection process that identifies what people care about? This is a chicken or egg problem. Did the news happen before or after people cared about it? Regardless of one's perspective, the process continues, and it is vital to understand this dynamic of news when one considers what they heard on the news. Second, there is an apparent limit on how much news the average person is willing to consume. Today, there are endless news outlets with nearly unlimited amounts of news, but most people only make it through the headlines or the first 20 minutes. This attention dynamic exists whenever humans are involved in consuming information. In business, it is the executive summary. In academics, it is the abstract part of the article. The list goes on and on. With this attention limit, one is driven to condense ideas and activities into short bursts of information. This is fine for simpler ideas or activities. But as the world and ideas get more complex, this becomes nearly impossible. If one cares about progress, getting people to read and think beyond the "20-minute limit" may be the greatest challenge of our time. There are two ways to tackle this problem. One could find ways to simplify the message but risk massive misunderstandings. Alternatively, one could work on ways to get people more free time to increase the likelihood that they will engage beyond the 20 minutes. This second option is the most appealing. The most significant bit of our time available for reallocation is work. There is mounting evidence that 40 hours/week is unnecessary, and we see the beginnings of the rebellion empowered by remote work. If organizations care about their employees, social justice, and society, as they claim, the greatest gift they can provide is time. People will do many different things with this time, but having more time allows one to think and care about things that matter to them. The river of progress will flow much faster when we have the time to navigate it together. #### Related Items [[Attention]] [[Society]] [[Progress]] [[Work]] [[Remote Work]] [[Rebel]] [[Thinking]]