Will Virtual Reality Win the Attention War for Screen Time?

Here’s a fun little experiment to try this Sunday while you’re watching the football game — show people in your party the ad below, for Microsoft’s new virtual / augmented reality partnership with the NFL, and make note of their reactions. Depending on demographics, you’re likely to either get something along the lines of “that’s so cool” or some sort of outrage about wearing a screen while in the same room as others, and how that’s destroying everything.

One of the biggest wars in tech is not Uber versus cab drivers, or Airbnb versus hotels, or, God help us, some artists versus streaming services. It’s the war over screen time, and it’s going to have huge implications not just for artists, but for everyone who consumes and enjoys content.

When I was a kid, the screen argument was that watching TV during dinner was destroying the American family. It seems so cute and quaint now, especially when I talk to parents whose kids consider watching TV with them a punishment rather than a treat. Vast chunks of my generation grew up watching the box while we ate dinner, and we seem to have survived mostly intact. Now the big panic seems to be over smartphone screens, and why these youths can’t just put down the phones for a minute and listen to what a wise person writing an essay about “the kids” has to say.

Last year I read a blog post by a prominent VC who railed against millennials using their phones at the table — and I should point out that this VC has made piles of money investing in the apps that make our phones so addictive and pretty much lives the “sell the disease, sell the cure” mentality. Now, he wasn’t talking about people who do legitimately dangerous things like texting and driving, or even potentially harmful and generally annoying things like staring at a phone in the middle of a crowded sidewalk. He was talking about people he was with at dinner who didn’t pay rapt attention to him when he spoke, because there was something more interesting on their phones and despite that, they should have been paying attention to him.

We also get the semi-annual op-ed from a college professor who has banned laptops in the classroom and is extremely proud of that, because the fact that you have to force people to pay attention to you demonstrates that you’re super awesome at your job. First off, I went to school before the rise of the connected laptop, and with apologies to my teachers, I spent tons of time tuning them out the old fashioned way — doodling, writing terrible poetry, and daydreaming. But the real paradigm shift that VCs and professors are afraid of is this — just because you happen to be in a position of authority doesn’t now automatically mean people have to listen to and engage with you. There are other options, and for some people that is terrifying.

Leading back to music, this means the bar has been substantially raised for artists and will go even higher once more people have access to VR and AR headsets. Until about ten years ago, if you were stuck at a boring show, there wasn’t much you could do, although I do have some memories of playing Tetris on a flip phone to pass the time during a dull opener. But now, if there’s a lull in the action, I can just whip out my phone and check Twitter, or read the news, or send a message to someone — and the band has to do much more to get my attention back. In a way, music is in danger of becoming a second screen activity, and for many people, passive listening already is. Rather than focusing on a song, it’s something that runs in the background while we consume other content.

Some artists, especially younger electronic artists, have figured out a way to create a compelling experience that people want to participate in as well as socialize, so they don’t feel disconnected in the moment. Other artists struggle with this — I’ve hit a point where I can’t watch four dudes with guitars on stage unless they are really, really great. So unless they want to be relegated to background noise, they better think of something quick.

As virtual and augmented reality become more mainstream, I guarantee we’re going to see an acceleration of this, and that my generation, the ones glued to their phones, will be complaining that the damn kids never take their headsets off. But for artists, this means that people can consume as they please and have endless options, and competition will be stiffer than ever. If you want to see live music, you’re no longer limited to what’s playing down the block — you can drop into any concert in the world via VR, and that will make it harder for the average band to draw an audience.

I saw a tweet a while ago that said something to the effect of “Millennials don’t have short attention spans, there is just unlimited great content to consume.” Millennials have also figured out that outside of specific work and school related tests, there’s no final exam in culture and socializing — so if you miss a granular detail of a friend’s breakup story or a plot point in a TV show, no big deal. You likely discovered something else and it winds up being a wash.

But for people who want others to pay attention to them, this means the bar has been raised dramatically. The correct response would be to create more compelling content that people will actually want to engage with — but that’s hard. Look for another round of screen wars to heat up, and start preparing those “Are Oculus headsets at the dinner table destroying our families” thinkpieces now.