Storytelling In The Digital Age

Attention span of a goldfish: 9 Seconds. Attention span of a netizen: 8 seconds.

The more we are bombarded with content, the less likely we are to spend time with any one piece – be it a beautifully crafted article, a photograph or even a video. We like it crisp and bite sized.

While the Internet takes over our minds, the heart is still human and wants pithy little pieces talking about love, heartbreak, friendships, everyday joys and sorrows. It's the same desire that once made Shelley and Maya Angelou a much loved part of our bookshelves. This has led to the new format of storytelling championed by communities such as Terribly Tiny Tales and Katha Cues.

Terribly Tiny Tales is a community of unpublished writers who write a tweet sized story everyday and publish it either on social media or on their website. These 140 character fictions have cast a spell on me.

Katha Cues on the hand is a story telling meet up where groups of people come together – some to narrate and some to listen to the stories. Well narrated stories of everyday occurrences – the only condition is that each story has to be narrated in less than seven minutes.

These kinds of modern formats of storytelling once again proves the old saying that brevity is indeed the soul of wit. The concept is indeed witty.