The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films

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.

If they think *that's* dull, just wait until they spend their post-college years selling burgers and fries -- until those jobs are all migrated to robots.

The rest of the Tufts/University keywords, sorted:

Tufts urges community to report sightings of immigration officials after agents spotted near campus [01/28/2026]
Judge releases the Turkish Tufts University student who was detained by ICE to continue her studies [05/09/2025]
Van Hollen: Trump Using 'Secret Police' Operations like 'Authoritarian Regimes' [03/28/2025]
Homeland Security Detains Tufts University Student for Supporting Hamas [03/27/2025]
Mass. judge demands answers after Tufts student detained by federal agents is rushed to Louisiana [the same liberal Indira Talwani blocked ICE in 2019] [03/27/2025]
Turkish student at Tufts University detained, video shows masked people handcuffing her [03/26/2025]
Trust the Science! Tufts University Study Shows Cheerios Healthier Than Eggs, Beef [09/02/2024]
University Launches Graduate Program to Fight the 'Rampant' White Supremacy of Museums [11/27/2022]
A Wellesley Student Speaks Out [10/24/2022]
Ice cream is better for you than granola: surprising snack study [08/16/2022]
Tufts University promotes 'retreat' to 'root out racism' among 'White Christian folks' [02/05/2021]
Tufts [University] 'art project' aims to help illegals evade law enforcement [ed] [07/19/2019]
Tufts to remove mural with only white people 'to attract a diversity of people' [07/02/2019]
Craig Hicks Sentenced to Life for Killing Three Neighbors (Part 2) (and last) [06/17/2019]
Pres. Saakashvili of the Republic of Georgia on Fox News at 4 am today talking about Crooked Hillary [03/27/2019]
Academia Tries To Spin Out of Hoax [10/12/2018]
Desecration of a WW2 Memorial [09/12/2018]
Building Blocks of Life Found on Mars [06/07/2018]
School cancels Anthony Scaramucci event over lawsuit threats [Tufts University] [11/27/2017]
Tufts students say Ben Shapiro's views put them in 'danger' [11/14/2017]
Tufts U. student-made 'disorientation' guide calls Israel 'white supremacist state' [09/11/2017]
Tufts and Brandeis College Administrations Promote Terrorist Propaganda, Silence Opposing Views [05/01/2017]
Tufts student senate passes Israel divestment resolution [04/10/2017]
[At] Tufts University, [a] Surprise BDS Resolution Brought for Vote Days Before Passover [04/09/2017]
Comrades, Dr. Farkas Has Discovered Russian Plot To Her Words in Mouth... [04/01/2017]
A Primer on Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) [12/13/2016]
Tufts U. student leaders reject free speech measure, call it 'unsafe' [11/28/2016]
2 People Wounded in Apparent Stabbing at Tufts University [05/31/2015]
Tufts University Hosting Islamists to Train Students in 'Direct Action' [10/24/2014]
First of Its Kind: Tufts University Hires Humanist Chaplain for Atheist Students [09/25/2014]
College offers to pay students to take year off [03/17/2014]
Scientists Put A Working Eyeball On A Tadpole's Tail [03/01/2013]
Tufts Univ. reinstates Christian ministry [12/08/2012]
Things are Tufts All Over [11/05/2012]
Tufts evangelical group [again] faces 'de-recognizing' for requiring leaders adhere to basic truths [10/29/2012]
Building The Body Electric [Tufts scientists manipulate electrical signals, sparks new eye] [12/16/2011]
Bill Clinton speaks at Tufts University [11/06/2011]
Tufts nurses union authorizes strike [04/15/2011]
Rep. Pelosi: "Elections Shouldn't Matter as Much as They Do" [04/13/2011]
ufts' Committee on Student Life: enabler of militant "Islamic" atrocities [07/19/2010]
Iranian Woman Flogged, Sentenced to be Stoned to Death [07/06/2010]
Vanity: Finally Proud to be a Tufts Alum (Scott Brown's alma mater) [01/19/2010]
Obama's Safe Schools Czar's Teen Conference Literature Pushed Anal Sex in Parks With Strangers [12/10/2009]
College bans dorm sex with roommate around [09/29/2009]
Tufts to break with Blue Cross [01/05/2009]
Lipstick Jungle (women in college) [09/26/2008]
Militant Islam Awareness Day: September 11 [09/11/2008]
Department of Homeland Security's funds bring Islamist sympathizers to Tufts [02/01/2008]
Climate change may cost Florida $345 billion a year: study ( by 2100 ) [11/29/2007]
Master of Social Change [09/26/2007]
Tufts case called hit to speech [05/14/2007]
U.S. - University Says Printing Facts of Islam is Form of 'Harassment' [05/13/2007]
Factual Statements=Unprotected Harassment!? A Terrifying Precedent at Tufts [05/12/2007]
Stalin-esque Show Trial At Tufts University [05/02/2007]
Former Harvard president still dogged by controversy -- even at Tufts [03/15/2007]
How left wing is your school when a President of Harvard is too "Right Wing" to speak there? [02/13/2007]
Lesbian Sues Pro-Family Activists for Exposing Truth About Pro-Homosexual Event [04/07/2006]
EBay Founder Gives $100 Million to Tufts [11/05/2005]
New Conservative Discussion @ Tufts University [03/16/2005]
How to write like conservatives [03/14/2005]
Web of Conspiracies. False rumors go from fringe staff go mainstream-again and again. [05/18/2004]
Vicar Uses the Simpsons To Teach Christian Message(Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa become college class) [04/05/2004]
Tufts Republicans Protest University 's Pornographic "Sex Fair" [02/20/2004]
Tufts halts dog walks after protest [01/02/2004]
Sexual Discrimination in Graduate School Admissions? [05/19/2003]
Postwar issues on podium at Tufts (UN Whiner Mohamed ElBaradei Alert) [05/19/2003]
Teaching Kindergarten Kids About 'Human Differences' and Homosexuality Isn't 'Easy' in Newton [04/17/2003]
Tufts University Senior Has Leadership Award PULLED After Vulgar Gesture in Anti-War Protest [03/24/2003]
Tufts senior loses award after insult to elder Bush [03/22/2003]
Playing the bias card [01/05/2003]
THE 'GAY SPIN ZONE' [08/22/2002]

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.

People are miserable if their ordinary lives are not like living in a Hollywood movie.

And now, even the Hollywood movies are too slow and boring with a delayed gratification that doesn’t seem worth waiting for.

I don’t see how these people will ever find a shred of happiness.

There must be much more to this that the media is leaving out, where is the competitiveness to do well in class that some of the students should have, where is the desire to please the professor that some should have, where is the sense of responsibility or discipline that some should have, where is the mere desire to watch the high quality movies, or the interest in the subject they signed up for that some should have, how about the reason of not wanting to appear stupid in a college class.

Different students should have one or more of those normal human reasons to watch the movies, some of this is clearly indifference and apathy, lack of goals, developed personalities of not being pushed or challenged, measured, etc. much is being left out of this.

What was I watching again ?

oh yeah some film for class, I just kinda tuned out when those hetro actors started slurping each others faces.

I need to find my phone and start taking verbal notes about this film starting with the title I forgot

Wait I have Texts! and a Notification from Dreadit that I have been permanently banned with no recorse because of my drunken post on how ICE has been doing a Pretti Goode job

Well minus that last one I get all that watching the Feds go after the rioters and “protesters” every night.

Naw I take that back, the “beautiful people”are the feds.

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