January 31, 2026
Popcorn vs. Push Notifications
The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films
Professors beg, phones win, and commenters say: fail them or TikTok it
TLDR: Professors say film students can’t sit through assigned movies, even at top schools, and phone bans aren’t working. The comments split between “fail them and restore standards,” “admit phones are addictive,” and jokers yelling “TikTok it,” turning a classroom problem into a culture war over attention and art.
Film-school drama alert: professors say even film majors can’t make it through a full movie, and the comments are roasting everyone. Instructors from across the U.S. report students sneaking looks at their phones during screenings, even when the electronics are banned. At USC, one prof compared the fidgeting to withdrawal, and when he screened Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, some students still stared at their screens during the crucial final scene. Streaming at home isn’t helping—one campus platform showed fewer than half even start the film, and only about 20 percent finish. One student openly admitted to watching slow world-cinema picks at 2x speed.
Cue the comment-section brawl. One camp goes full hard-line: “Just fail them” and stop treating students like customers. Another says the real enemy is the addiction machine of phones—“Now what?” is the big, uneasy question. Then come the pranksters: “Break the films into scrollable clips with distorted music,” one joked; another suggested adding a tiny Pedro raccoon and Minecraft parkour overlays to keep eyes on the screen. A few optimists ask if shorter stories—like flash fiction—could rescue attention spans. The vibe? A culture clash between classic cinema patience and scroll culture, with professors caught in the splash zone and comment warriors fighting over whether to raise standards, redesign classes, or just surrender to the algorithm.
Key Points
- •Film professors across U.S. universities report increased difficulty getting students to watch assigned feature-length films, especially since the pandemic.
- •Electronics bans during screenings are hard to enforce, with many students surreptitiously using phones.
- •Many courses now allow streaming instead of required in-person screenings, but tracked data show low start and completion rates (under 50% start; ~20% finish at Indiana University).
- •Students often multitask or play films at accelerated speeds, reducing engagement and comprehension.
- •Inattentive viewing leads to poor understanding, evidenced by difficulty answering basic exam questions about film endings.