Ep. 393: Can Movies Save Us From Our Phones?

An Atlantic piece on film students who can’t sit through films kicks us off, and I frame it as bad news and good news: phones have done more damage to our attention than we realized, but relearning how to watch movies can help us take our minds back; welcome to Deep Questions.

Evidence is everywhere, from Reddit threads to streamers reshaping scripts so viewers on their phones won’t bail, and I contrast that with the patience audiences once had—think of Pacino’s long, quiet burn in The Godfather before the first big turn.

The pandemic supercharged device use, and professors now describe students twitching like nicotine withdrawal during screenings; when you live in the infinite scroll, two hours feels brutal.

I borrow Maryanne Wolf’s idea of cognitive patience—the muscle for sustained focus and delayed gratification—and apply it to film: phones weaken it, so movies start to feel punishing.

Two reward systems are colliding: the short-term system screams to grab the phone, while the long-term system that grants deep satisfaction withers from lack of reps; that anti-virtuous loop makes even good films feel flat.

Movies are a canary in the coal mine for all rich, meaning-making pursuits; rebuilding that patience gives you attentional autonomy, so I pitch film-watching as your first 5K for cognitive fitness.

Get practical: put the phone out of reach so those reward ‘votes’ can’t hijack you, and choose films that actually pay off so the long-term system starts winning again.

Use my 30-minute rule: watch for half an hour, pause to read a smart review or analysis, then continue; prime your attention with what to notice, and the reward deepens.

Bonus craft tip: check American Cinematographer pieces on classics—lighting, lenses, and shot choices will make scenes pop and raise your engagement.

Starter films that repay attention across eras include M, Citizen Kane, The Searchers, Vertigo, Bonnie and Clyde, Jaws, Taxi Driver, Dunkirk, The Zone of Interest, and a recent Safdie brothers gem; Coppola, Duvall, and Altman moments enrich the ride.

News and notes: I react to Matt Shumer’s viral ‘Something big is happening’ essay and push back on the vibes; progress actually decelerated after GPT-4 as labs pivoted to post-training, benchmark chasing, and narrow wins.

From my ongoing reporting with hundreds of active programmers, no one is ‘describe an app and return in four hours’—real use means tight specs, heavy supervision, and lots of testing; these tools automate tedious glue work, they don’t invent new AI.

Bottom line: interesting, steady gains for coding, but not a civilization-scale inflection; skip the alarmism and watch the real workflows.

Listener note on the Olympics: social media is costing elite athletes focus and confidence; teams that enforce abstinence will gain an edge, and examples like Alex Honnold’s pre-climb phone fast show how powerful a clear head can be.

Book update: my Deep Life manuscript is in editors’ hands; I’ll write the conclusion with a fresh brain, and yes, I threw out a lot of pages—professional writers do it to get to a tighter, practical handbook.

On the nightstand: a sharp attention manifesto and a breezy Caribbean thriller; I also riff on how email bloated editors’ jobs and on Remnick’s Rogan profile as a clash between rationalist norms and vibe-driven conversation.

That’s it for today; thanks for listening, we’ll be back next week, and as always, stay deep.