Four Score and Seven Years Ag-- ooo look, shiny!

According to Jeff Davidson, author of "The Complete Guide to Public Speaking," “The human attention span is 7 minutes, an all time low...If you're in front of a group and you don't have something humorous to say atleast once every seven minutes, you are going to have a tough time.”

We live in media obsessed country in which many of us determine our vote from the 10 second sound bites we catch on TV. For most of us our attention spans can't handle watching an entire speech from a candidate, so we wait for the highlights. Unfortunately, our opinion is then subject to the media's interpretation of the speech.

Neil Postman writes that the attention span of humans was considerably longer years ago. The specific example he uses in his book is that of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1800's which were literally read from paper and lasted for hours. People stayed, listened and paid attention! Today, we can't sit through a 30 minute Obama speech, and he is revered for his public speaking!

But there is hope! There are plenty of speeches and debates to come and most likely wont be longer than 2 hours. We the young people of the U.S. are smarter than the pundits and grandparents say, and we do have the attention span for a debate and we CAN form our own opinions about it, AND WE WILL!

Here up the upcoming debates:

April 16, 2008: Obama/Clinton debate on ABC from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

April TBD, 2008: Obama/Clinton debate on CBS from North Carolina

AND debates are already scheduled for the John McCain and the Democratic nominee for the following dates:

September 26, 2008: Presidential debate with domestic policy focus, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

October 2, 2008: Vice Presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

October 7, 2008: Presidential debate in a town hall format, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

October 15, 2008:Presidential debate with foreign policy focus, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Invite your friends over for a debate night and talk about the issues you don't understand. Use our handy invitiation on Facebook to invite your friends over or remind them to vote!

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