Even film students can no longer watch a movie to the end.

The article was published on February 1st and republished on March 30, 2026.

“Everyone knows it’s difficult to get students to read,” observes The Atlantic, “but the crisis of concentration is not limited to writing: professors now find that they can’t even get their students to watch movies in class.” Based on about twenty testimonies, journalist Rose Horowitch reveals this phenomenon, which she believes has worsened since the pandemic.

Even though some professors have “confessed to seeing no change,” most feel the opposite and some even go as far as comparing their students to “withdrawal smokers.” One professor, despite the prohibition on electronic devices during screenings, notices that half of his students “end up sneakily glancing at their phones.”

Since many students “categorically refuse the idea of in-person screenings,” several professors now “allow them to stream movies.” But do they really do it? The American monthly magazine cites the example of Indiana University, where teachers can check if students are watching films on the campus’s internal streaming platform. The result: on average, less than 50% start the film and only 20% watch it to the end.

“Reeducating perception”

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a professor asked his students, with multiple-choice questions, what happens at the end of François Truffaut’s film “Jules et Jim.” More than half the class answered incorrectly, claiming, for example, that “the characters hide from Nazis (even though the film takes place before World War I)” or that “they have drinks with Ernest Hemingway (who doesn’t appear in the film).” This is the first time in twenty years, admits the professor, that the test results have been so poor, forcing him to “adjust grades.”

Nevertheless, the journalist emphasizes that most of her interviewees “have not blamed the students” but rather “the evolution of our media habits.” Young adults have “no memory of a world without endless scrolling” and during adolescence, on average, spent “five hours a day on social networks […] watching short videos.” An analysis of “computer users’ attention” reveals that they now switch tabs or apps every 47 seconds, compared to once every two and a half minutes in 2004.

Netflix, well aware of this issue, “advises its directors to repeat the plot to characters three or four times so that multitasking viewers can follow the story,” as recently explained by Matt Damon to podcaster Joe Rogan.