The average human attention span lasts about 8.25 seconds, which is shorter than the 9-second attention span held by a goldfish. This is according to the Statistic Brain Institute. In short, people can’t pay attention for long periods of time; and that includes me, especially when it comes to reading.

I’ve never been able to sit still reading a book or even something as short as a four page article. Trying to sit down and just read — for pleasure, mind you — is probably one of the hardest and most boring things to do. Let alone doing it as an assignment for class. Trying to read a book that has 200-300 pages and no illustrations is even worse. In fact, while writing this part of the article, I’ve already checked my phone about eight times.

I understand when people tell me that reading has the ability to take your mind to another world. If you have the patience to make the effort to read a 300 page novel without a single picture, then I applaud you and give you all the credit in the world. However, there are many people who, like myself, prefer visual representation during a story in order to keep a certain amount of interest, and there are statistics to back that up.

Last year in the U.S. alone, the top 10 movies in terms of box office revenue brought in about $3.7 billion. In that same time span, e-book sales fell about 16 percent, according to Publishers Weekly.

So the numbers and the statistics are there. Reading is a dying art because it’s not keeping people interested enough in the story and is not finding new ways to pique that interest. This is all because we can’t pay enough atten … Oh cool! I just found a nickel!