The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films

The Atlantic ^ | January 30, 2026 | Rose Horowitch

[Borges]

Everyone knows it’s hard to get college students to do the reading—remember books? But the attention-span crisis is not limited to the written word. Professors are now finding that they can’t even get film students—film students—to sit through movies. “I used to think, If homework is watching a movie, that is the best homework ever,” Craig Erpelding, a film professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. “But students will not do it.”

I heard similar observations from 20 film-studies professors around the country. They told me that over the past decade, and particularly since the pandemic, students have struggled to pay attention to feature-length films. Malcolm Turvey, the founding director of Tufts University’s Film and Media Studies Program, officially bans electronics during film screenings. Enforcing the ban is another matter: About half the class ends up looking furtively at their phones.

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TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: malcolmturvey; tuftsuniversity

[No name given]

Of the worst kind.

[No name given]

They need Jesus.

[Republican Wildcat]

short videos, mobile computers (phones), etc. are destroying the attention span of people...particularly those who grew up with them in their formative years.

[ifinnegan]

That’s funny.

Although, maybe these perfessers are making them watch really boring or stupid movies.

[SaveFerris]

[People want their day-to-day lives to have soundtracks.
People want their day-to-day lives to have drama and excitement.
People want their day-to-day lives to have happy endings.
People want their day-to-day lives to be filled with stunningly beautiful people.]

True

I just saw a twenty-something complaining this morning 🌅🌄 at breakfast 🥞🍳 who couldn’t understand why when she had taken too much PTO WHY her employer then collected the negative balance out of her next paycheck (100%) 😲😉

🙄

[Dilbert San Diego]

Yep a sad commentary on where we are. Short attention spans prevent them from being able.to.watch a movie? Wow. Sad.....

[MinorityRepublican]

In all fairness, most movies are a lot longer than a tiktok. slower too.

To be fair, most movies nowadays are really bad.

Every once a while, they make a good movie.

Top Gun: Maverick

The Housemaid featuring Sydney Sweeney made $300 million on a $35 million budget.

[MinorityRepublican]

Although, maybe these perfessers are making them watch really boring or stupid movies.

Agreed. Especially if they have "Mary Sue" character in them.

[Robert DeLong]

I guess it depends on the video being shown. I think we have all seen videos that for one reason or another, it becomes unwatchable before the end is reached, and sometimes to the halfway point is not worth reaching.

If I sat many of you down to watch an hour of lunatic leftists talking screaching, how long would most of you watch that entire hour, or even just a half hour?

[hoosierham]

I no longer watch because nearly all TV shows and movies promote homosexual,and now transgender characters as the best while conservative or traditional values are ridiculed.

[Chickensoup]

I watch old textured films and older complex series.

[moviefan8]

pdf version of the article is found below.

https://se4n.org/papers/horowitch-film-students.pdf

[ssfromla]

So, they hate the movies almost as much as I do. That’s sad because you know they lean left.

[Robert DeLong]

Well, that wasn’t the specfic reason I was thinking of, but along the same path for sure. Too much of what is being produced, is all in support of left leaning ideologies. 😁👍

[Joe 6-pack]

Nothing new here. I had a history of cinema class in college back in the 80's. One of my classmates had a glass eye. When we watched boring films he'd plant his elbow on his desk, cup his hand over his good eye and fall asleep while he, "watched" the movie with his glass eye.

[ifinnegan]

I had film classes back then as an undergraduate too.

I saw a lot of good movies.

I think that’s one reason I don’t think very highly of anything being released of late.