Film students who can no longer sit through films • Hacker News Board

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#91

Post by TheAceOfHearts » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

llbbdd wrote: post #54

crazygringo wrote: post #33

Counterpoint from the article: > A handful of professors told me they hadn’t noticed any change. Some students have always found old movies to be slow, Lynn Spigel, a professor of screen cultures at Northwestern University, told me. “But the ones who are really dedicated to learning film always were into it, and they still are.” The article doesn't actually give any evidence attention spans are shortened. Many of the…

You're not the first person I've seen say that they do that with movies and I just can't put myself in your shoes. If there's nothing to pay attention to during those sequences then the whole movie isn't worth it, if I felt like juggling the fast forward for a movie I would just turn it off. It's like cropping the intentional negative space around a painting or skipping over dramatic silence in a musical piece. Tensi…

I watch almost every movie at 2x and I think it usually makes the whole experience better for me. You can tailor your own media experiences however you want. If you disagree with a director's vision for a movie you can bring your own perspective, there's no right or wrong way to watch a movie. It's no different to picking out a specific track in an album, or finding a hook you really enjoy from a specific track and playing it on repeat.

One of the most recent movies I watched and really enjoyed was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It was an animation masterpiece, but I still skipped forward in a couple scenes because I don't care about the characters. Some of the animation sequences were interesting enough to merit slowing down to 1x and even going back to rewatch and analyze them in-depth though.

Sometimes I'll encounter a seasonal anime that's quite terrible among multiple dimensions but which has few interesting aspects like creative art design or a couple interesting sequences, so I skim through it to look for those details in order to take them in. It's possible to appreciate various components of a work without caring for the combined result.

One of the things which helped break me out of the normative movie-watching perspective was encountering this art project where a social media page would post every Spongebob frame in order [0]. It made me really start paying attention to a ton of minor details that I hadn't noticed previously, increasing my appreciation for the work that went into making it happen.

In the past you really had no choice but to submit to the director's vision of a work, and you were forced to experience it the same as everyone else in the theater. Now we have more control than ever to enjoy works however we want. Game modding is another variation on this same principle: if I think a game has some bullshit mechanics, I should be able to patch it and play it however I want.

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/every-spongebob-frame-i...

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#92

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

steve1977 wrote: post #31

treelover wrote: post #20

Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? The information density of a slow 1970s drama is incredibly low compared to the multi-stream environment they grew up in. They aren't necessarily 'dumber'; their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing, whereas cinema is optimized for immersion.

> Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? Why would you think it's an outdated format for the current generation if not for their loss of attention span?

[deleted]

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#93

Post by alamortsubite » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

AlienRobot wrote: post #42

treelover wrote: post #20

Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? The information density of a slow 1970s drama is incredibly low compared to the multi-stream environment they grew up in. They aren't necessarily 'dumber'; their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing, whereas cinema is optimized for immersion.

>their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing Wow, is there any evidence of this?

I like to imagine it's the same neurological phenomenon as Mal de débarquement syndrome[1], but as a result of spending too much time on one's phone, rather than choppy waters.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal_de_debarquement

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#94

Post by Der_Einzige » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

philipallstar wrote: post #10

> Smith has administered similar exams for almost two decades; he had to grade his most recent exam on a curve to keep students’ marks within a normal range. This is really silly. Just fail them. They are not customers.

Teachers/Professors are some of the biggest oppressors in society. They directly decide who gets to be poor and who gets to be wealthy.

Every negative grade they give is robbery of food out of your children's mouth. There's a reason they get their backs against the walls first during revolutions.

The book that coined the term "Meritocracy" was extremely critical of the concept for a reason. It is bad to try to have one and good to destroy the concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#95

Post by steve1977 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC

AlienRobot wrote: post #42

treelover wrote: post #20

Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? The information density of a slow 1970s drama is incredibly low compared to the multi-stream environment they grew up in. They aren't necessarily 'dumber'; their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing, whereas cinema is optimized for immersion.

>their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing Wow, is there any evidence of this?

High-frequency infotainment consumption maybe.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#96

Post by illiac786 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

semilin wrote: post #35

If you really care about something, screen addiction does not interfere. A friend of mine has a terrible Instagram addiction, yet has developed for himself a certain degree of cinephilia lately -- we've watched long movies together in theaters and not once has he been on his phone during the screenings. When one has faith that sustained attention might hold more value than that gained by interruption, they tend to pr…

Very little people really care about a hobby. The ones that do are the most visible but the huge mass just isn’t passionate.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#97

Post by mpawelski » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #33

Counterpoint from the article: > A handful of professors told me they hadn’t noticed any change. Some students have always found old movies to be slow, Lynn Spigel, a professor of screen cultures at Northwestern University, told me. “But the ones who are really dedicated to learning film always were into it, and they still are.” The article doesn't actually give any evidence attention spans are shortened. Many of the…

> It's not that I suffer from a short attention span, it's that there's nothing to pay attention to.

Is it only me that think this is exactly a short attention span?

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#98

Post by s5300 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#99

Post by watwut » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

steve1977 wrote: post #31

treelover wrote: post #20

Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? The information density of a slow 1970s drama is incredibly low compared to the multi-stream environment they grew up in. They aren't necessarily 'dumber'; their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing, whereas cinema is optimized for immersion.

> Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? Why would you think it's an outdated format for the current generation if not for their loss of attention span?

Because they can focus on different movies. Americans few decades ago found internarional movies boring, did not focused, but could focus on American movies.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#100

Post by nephihaha » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #89

kmijyiyxfbklao wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm OK with you re-editing the movie as you watch it, but you can't say you watched the same movie as other people that don't do that.

Nobody watches the same movie, the same way no man steps into the same river twice. Some people have trouble following plot. Some people excuse themselves to use the bathroom. Some people have trouble catching all the dialog. Some people close their eyes during the scary parts. Different elements call up totally different associations in different people's brains. If you watch a movie a first time and then a second t…

That's perfectly true, but like Heraclitus' river, you can have a very similar experience on more than one occasion. (After the first time, at least.)