Pink Worship

Natalie Angier recently wrote in the New York Times about the role of pink noise in Hollywood Director cuts. Pink noise (1/f or "one over" frequency) is similar to white noise. The main difference between the two is that while white noise is random while pink noise has some structure to it. White noise looks like this:


Pink noise looks like this:


For more see this review.

What you see in the pink noise is that there is some order within the randomness. Pink noise walks a balance between randomness and structure. Interestingly, pink noise shows up in all kinds of natural phenomena. The rhythms of the natural world are not wholly random, nor are they wholly structured. Pink noise seems to be frequency of life.

The human mind also seems to be governed by pink noise. In her article Angier has us think about the human attention span during work. If we plot how long we attend to various tasks throughout the day--focusing now and moving to something else later--we see pink noise emerge. Our attention isn't random, but neither is it wholly stable and structured. We tend to alternate between moments of fixed attentiveness ("I have to get this done!") to periods of high distractability (surfing the Internet at work).

In her article Angier reviews a recent study where researchers measured the length of the shots (the discrete camera shots that string together to make a movie) within Hollywood movies over the years. Some shots are very long. Some a only a few seconds. Is there any relationship between shot length and how these are grouped together? Or is the pattern like white noise, totally random?

The research suggests that older movies tended to be more white but that, over time, movies are becoming more pink. Here is the relevant graphic from the New York Times (click to enlarge):


In short, it seems that movie directors are starting to cluster shot length to more closely mirror the natural rhythms of the mind.

What does this have to do with worship? Well, with the rise of mega-churches and American consumerism we see worship services being shaped by attention to dramatic production features. Worship is, increasingly, a show or performance. No doubt, this "show" can be highly participatory (with worshipers very vocal, mobile and engaged). Or it might not (worshipers sitting still, quiet and looking on). Regardless, there is a great deal of attention being paid to how the various components of the "show" are organized and link together. For example, transitions between the components are given much more attention.

I'm not judging any of this. But I would like to ask this question. Are Christian worship services becoming more pink? That is, might worship in America (or elsewhere) be following the trends of Hollywood? Might worship planners be unconsciously creating worship experiences that mirror the rhythms of the human mind and attention span, creating an experience optimized to "hold" our focus?

I think it would be possible to measure how pink a worship service is (e.g., simply measure the duration of each focal point within the service as your attention is moved here for a song or there to a PowerPoint slide). If so, a host of research question could then be pursued. For example, are the newer worship styles more pink relative to older styles? What are the demographic characteristics of those in pinker churches? Are they younger? More consumer-oriented?

Regardless, a theological issue sits behind all this: Should worship even be pink? Should we aim for pink worship so it can better "fit" our brains? Why or why not?