8 Seconds
Weekly update #340 7/26/2026 to 8/1/2026
Somewhere between two and eight seconds is all I have to get your attention. That gives me two and a half sentences to get you to read the rest of this post. Before I go further with this though, let me share some of my week serving as the mayor of the best small town in America.
Congratulations to Freeman Field Municipal Airport, KSER if you are familiar with the International Civil Aviation Organization code, on the opening of Hangar Echo. Like most projects Hangar Echo has been in the plans for many years and has finally come to reality over the last year. With a waiting list of pilots and planes the project was placed into the capital improvement plan almost a decade ago. Then as time went by and other projects were checked off it worked its way up to being a part of requests to the Federal Aviation Administration. Even after they approved the project they still did not have enough funding to see the project to the ribbon cutting. With farm and industrial revenue KSER was getting closer. The Seymour Redevelopment Commission was able to assist getting the project finished with Tax Increment Funding dollars raised via local industry. As you can see it takes planning and a network of groups and individuals to get another project across the finish line. Thank you to everyone involved for all you do.
Speaking of partnering up, the Seymour Parks and Recreation Department recently held the End of Summer Escape. This event has been going on for several years and includes partners like Jackson County United Way, Fraternal Order of Police, Indiana Department of Transportation, Seymour Fire Department, WJAA, Jackson County Public Library, and several others. It is one last summer bash held the Friday before Seymour Schools start back up which is coming this Wednesday. The bouncy houses, foam party, free food, and so much more made for a fun way to wrap up summer break. Thank you to everyone involved in making the event a success over the years, and thank you to 180 RCO for sponsoring the free pool party Friday night.
If you have read this far, you already made it past the two to eight seconds that studies have shown to be the attention span for adults reading social media posts. During the quarterly meeting of the Local Technical Assistance Program, LTAP, board, one of the topics was how adults learn. One of the ways LTAP assists communities is by providing training on things like commercial drivers licenses and heavy equipment operations to name a few. As we all know styles of learning and attention spans are different for adults than they are for children. Adults sitting through a lecture have about a 15 minute attention span. Hands-on learning jumps to about 45 minutes. A few years ago, training shifted to a digital format with videos, and unfortunately, that drops down to about six minutes before most adults start drifting away. As part of what LTAP does they try to make sure they understand how best to deliver the education they are working on in various ways including shortening video training into much smaller sections and blending hands-on with lectures to get the most bang for the session. This all led me to look and see what our attention span is for things like social media and short videos. While studies vary, it seemed to be that for a short video it was about eight seconds before they scroll on. If it is a text heavy post like this one, it seems that you have two to eight seconds to get someone interested before they scroll on. I believe this is the reason that so many are willing to sensationalize information when they post. After all this, I will leave you with the words of Francois Fenelon, "The more you say, the less people remember."