I speak for a lot of students when I say that our phones have become something of a crutch in our daily lives. Doomscrolling has, for the most part, taken the place of TV-binging or movie marathons, and it seems that we’ve become perfectly satisfied with our new forms of fast-paced media consumption. 

But the other day, I was partaking in my usual homework-evading Instagram scroll when a particular post caught my attention. It was a joke along the lines of, “My phone addiction is so bad, watching a movie feels productive.” 

Besides the relatability and irony in the comment, there was something else striking about what the post said. It was the implication that a movie is something only a dopamine-addled brain could find intellectually demanding. That ignited the indignant film-enjoyer within me. 

Of course, with every sardonic tweet that gets reposted onto an Instagram meme page, there is some truth. We’ve grown so accustomed to the immediate relief that our phones provide that watching long-form content has become a strain on our attention spans. It feels embarrassingly rewarding to finish a film, especially a slower-paced one, when all it takes is a single swipe on our phones to tap into a fountain of mind-numbing content.

But I want to refute the idea that film watching is not an intellectually stimulating experience. Filmmaking is a craft that must be honed, and, once it is perfected, the works it produces are just as thought-provoking as any other piece of art or literature. Watching a film is formative—you just have to watch it right.

Now, to avoid sounding like a pompous film snob, I’m not saying that there’s some superior way of analyzing a movie, or that there’s a certain type of film one must watch in order to appreciate the medium correctly. Obviously, there isn’t one right way to enjoy a film. It’s more about whether we’re truly engaging with the medium. 

I’m talking about that itch we get to check Twitter during a movie, or the temptation to skip past a boring scene to “get to the good part.” When we do this, we’re missing out on the experience of an entire film, one that likely took years of human effort, to get some short-lived instant relief.  

You might be “watching” the movie, but if you’re doing homework, switching to a different tab to check your DMs, or seeing it on TikTok in two-times speed with a Subway Surfers game beneath it, you probably aren’t really experiencing what it has to offer.

In the end, consuming art is a reciprocal experience: art gives back what you put into it. When we’re distracted, we miss the joy, the passion, the humanity poured into a piece of visual media. We’re so busy burying our noses into our screens to escape what makes us human that we miss what a film could tell us about ourselves. 

Which is why, in the fast-paced age of social media, of “I didn’t watch it, but I saw a clip of it on TikTok,” we have to fight against becoming complacent in our content consumption. We have to make an effort to go out and appreciate what’s in front of us instead of taking it for granted. 

Stellan Skarsgård just recently won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Male Actor in a Motion Picture, and something he said in his acceptance speech resonated with me. He won the award for his performance in Sentimental Value, a small, low-budget Norwegian film, an especially inspiring accolade given the number of blockbusters dominating awards season this year. 

But it was what he said about watching movies in person that seemed especially pertinent. He expressed his hope that the audience would see this film in theaters, emphasizing the importance of community in the experience of consuming visual media.

“In a cinema, where the lights go down, and eventually you share the pulse with some other people, that is magic,” Skarsgård said. “Cinema should be seen in cinemas.”

To Skarsgård’s point, I think the experience of seeing a movie in a theater is crucial to appreciating the art of film because theaters provide a setting that fosters a sense of community and shared experience. By being a member of a live audience and partaking in this fellowship, we can combat that shameful feeling of unproductivity when we consume long-form content.

For instance, I went to see Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme with a friend over winter break. It was the first time I’d been to the theater since I’d come home from school. Although I’d watched a couple of movies in my room on my laptop, with the chaos of the holidays, I hadn’t really gotten the chance to immerse myself in the world of a film until this day.

When we got to the theater, kicking back in the oversized leather seats and cracking open the snacks we’d smuggled in, I couldn’t help but appreciate the wonder of cinema culture: the pre-show buzz, the excited murmurs as the house lights went down, the melodramatic previews for movies you’ll probably never try to see. 

I think what I was most in awe of, though, especially looking back with Skarsgård’s speech in mind, was the audience during Marty Supreme. There was a wide demographic, including families, couples, hordes of teenage boys, and even one or two lone movie-goers. But everyone, no matter their age, relationship status, or background, was equally entranced by this film. 

If you’ve seen Marty Supreme, you’ll know that it’s a wild, tense, hilarious ride, and it felt so refreshing to experience every beat with this crowd of strangers. Being able to hear everybody else’s laughs, gasps, and suspenseful silence as I watched heightened the viewing experience in every way. Even if I would never see any of them again, for a moment, we were all a community united by our perfectly aligned enjoyment of this film. 

And, perhaps the most important part, not a single person was on their phone. Everyone was fully engaged and present in each moment, right up until the credits.

That’s the beauty of a movie theater. You can’t hide from a boring scene or an uncomfortable moment by escaping into your phone. If you’re committing to a film in the theater, you have to confront every aspect of it. It’s not as easy to switch tabs with a huge screen and a surround-sound system enveloping you. 

So, with the sentiment of community in mind, I encourage you to take a couple of hours out of your day to go and revel in the beauty of a great film. Maybe it’s something new, maybe an old favorite. Maybe go with a friend, or go alone and just take it all in. But I think it’s important to remember how much art can have the power to touch us and our lives, even if we don’t always notice. 

Even if you don’t have the means of going to a theater, when you’re watching a film or television show, make the conscious choice to turn on Do Not Disturb and put your phone where you can’t grab it easily. Respect the fact that visual media is a gift—an art form that can’t be replicated by AI or expressed in short, digestible clips. 

The human condition is worth experiencing, and it’s something you don’t want to miss out on. Watching a film, showing it to a friend, appreciating human creation—that’s engagement. I can’t think of anything more productive than that.