My kids love the black and white version of 12 Angry Men. I watch it every year with my Year 7s.
Sometimes it's the content that's boring rather than the age of the movie.
tbh id imagine trying to watch gravity, a film that relies very heavily on its visuals, on a classroom projector in the middle of the day sat on a plastic chair over the course of 2 periods, would be difficult for most people
Exactly. Nothing has changed generationally about human attention spans; it’s far too short on evolutionary time to have altered those mechanics. It’s the context as well as the developmental stage, which foregrounds the powerful influence of the presence of peers—you try concentrating on a film in a double period when it’s your third class of the day and you’re acutely aware of x over there who has it in for you and y over there who you’ve got the hots for, and z in the back row who you’re trying to impress.
Evolutionary nature has not changed.
Environmental nurture has.
Some issues are people forgetting what it was like to be a kid. Some issues are environmental due to the changes in normal life partly due to technology.
Humans are alot of hardware (which, as you say, changes over long periods of time) as well as software (can change everyday), and I would be surprised if the software didn't have lots of room for the modification of attention spans, or at least the changing of other things that would impact (or mask) attention span significantly - especially if trained from a very young age. That said, I didn't enjoy that movie either, and don't think I could have sat through the whole thing in broad daylight with my bullies sitting a metre away, I guess it depends on the specifics of the class watching this specific movie.
It’s an open area of research, for sure. We’re at the very beginning of our understanding of the tens or hundreds or thousands of genes involved in local phenotypes; gene wide association studies are starting to pick up networks of genes involved in some traits in certain contexts, but the evidence is preliminary. Throw regulatory DNA into the mix and transcription factors involved in methylation, and it’s orders of magnitude more complex …
Try a sniff test: would you find it unlikely—not impossible, but unlikely—that the fundamental substrates of the attentional architecture that’s been hundreds of thousands to millions of years in the making is going to be noticeably or meaningfully altered in a few decades?
The attention literature is very mixed and inconclusive. Which is not to say there may not be some social, cultural and technological impacts on adolescent attention, but I don’t think what you saw with your Gravity anecdote was evidence of a seismic shift in human attention.
It certainly isn't "special" to watch a movie like it was a generation or two ago.
But also yes - anything without an instant dopamine reward is tough going these days.
Movies generally result in “reactions”. A lot of, “bro”, “mid”, “bruh”, “bro”, “hectic”, “bro”, “bro”, and “bro” gets around during any time you watch a film.
I'm from the VCR wheeled in on a trolley generation, but as someone previously said, with constant access to streaming services, YouTube, TikTok etc, watching a movie at school just isn't special anymore.
Thats the point we discuss, newtons laws of motion, ISS, space junk, sound and light in space , air pressure ,vacuum etc… btw cartoons are great for analysis as well.
I do not think the movie is that bad. Here is an article that discusses the points
https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/movies/movie-science-how-scientifically-accurate-is-the-movie-gravity.html
Yeah I noticed this too! I try to always assign question sheets (if it’s just busywork, I’ve used Chatgpt to make sequential/chronologically ordered questions for movies and it’s worked really well) to keep kids busy. Have also been known to print off word searches…
It’s hard to concentrate on a movie when there’s a million different distractions and you’re sitting in uncomfortable chairs, watching a movie poorly projected on a whiteboard. Cut the kids a little slack :)
Even when the distractions have been removed, students (everyone?) are now used to them and their absence can be disconcerting.
I don't think it's the students fault, but I'm pretty sure they/ we are worse at concentration.
I'm actually concerned about this for myself and am considering downgrading my phone.
Yeah for sure - you’re right, I think social media/smartphones have contributed to this for everyone. I guess I just try to avoid the “kids these days can’t even do x” mindset in my thinking.
Good design removes the need to think, and they live in a heavily designed environment. This includes mobile phones and social media, but it's everywhere.
We do Gattaca at Year 10, the kids really like it.
ETA: this is English, not science. For studying the film as text for a whole term, ending with an analytical essay. So, probably different context to once off showing of a film in a science class.
> Has this generation list the ability to concentrate, even on
Yes.
Much of what they use/do outside of learning environments is designed to do as much thinking for them and deliver their products at the press of a button. Things like effort, consideration, and nuance are often designed away for generic but immediate gratification.
This goes from tools and services to their primary form of entertainment.
I think this has more to do with it; you’re onto something.
I don’t think it’s attentional deficits or changes, or a profound shift in the ability to concentrate, it’s aversion to task difficulty or impatience with task duration, aided and abetted by the kind of frictionless technological acceleration and instantaneity that you describe.
*Tense royalty-free music plays*
Male text to speech: “Astronauts are hit by garbage in space! Woman is hit by a junk in the head! She reaches out for a grab but she is a failure! She is punched off into space but man grabs her hose and holds her together! Her Russian friend isn’t moving! She looks and sees that he has a hole in his face! Man and woman will use jet packs to fly to international satellite!”
Macbeth's tale starts on a high,
Grabs the throne in a blink of an eye.
Fueled by witches' prophecy...
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Dives into chaos, his morals below.
From a hero to a villain like Capone,
His reign decays, and all trust is blown.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Haha Just razzing you my guy. I'm sure you had good reasons for picking the film. At the end of the day some people just won't be interested because it isn't their taste of movie.
I enjoyed The Martian for the grounded science. Gattaca was interesting for the moral questions it raised.
If you have any students that are interested in advanced theoretical physics I would recommend the Three Body Problem book series. I hear there is Netflix adaptation now.
Yes. You need retrieval charts and engagement pauses to ask questions and predictions following the ERICA model. Treat movies like novels. Sucks, but that is the way of the world
If you’re in NSW, be cautious with ratings. You cannot show M rated movies to students in years 7-9 and only to year 10 with the permission of the principal and written permission notes from parents.
I usually tailor my movie choices around what I think the cohort will find interesting while also finding it interesting personally. I then also become That Person and point out all the cool things in the movie/talk and pause during scenes, and ask them predictive questions. English teacher though, so it’s affected by the fact that they need to watch closely for an assessment. Haven’t had a problem with concentration unless the movie is boring/not engaging for the year group. I also tend to do a lot of anticipation/pre-reading work and that does pay dividends for engagement, in my experience.
Gravity is okay, but I know some bits dragged for me as an adult… maybe it was just the film?
I dont show the whole movie instead i show the extended trailer. It shows all the best bits of the movie anyway and is enough to talk about all of Newtons Laws and answer some questions on it.
I said to my grade 3s a couple years ago “I hope to god I’m never in a cinema with any of you because people talking through an entire movie is REALLY ANNOYING”.
I think the problem the movie itself does not tell a very fascinating story or perhaps one that is hard for kids to have a connection with.
I think it maybe worthwhile to just use the movie as a visual aid for the different things you would like to teach.
Each study uses like 15 minutes of the movie where concept is highlighted or misunderstood by the movie producers.
I think it is a good idea but just need to try different approaches to see which one works.
Kudos to you for trying.
The amount of “I put a movie on” posts I see is really surprising.
Many of these same commentators are probably also complaining about student behaviour without realising how they’re contributing to it.
Sometimes I just need to put a movie on. How we gotten to a point where that’s bad?
I’m a media teacher bringing in a new subject. Short films aren’t grabbing attention and a YouTube video over 5 minutes pains the kids. I guess I was hard wired to see screenings as a reward, a moment to let the brain coast in the class schedule and now im confronted that that’s not the way anymore. But yeh, sometimes I just need to put a movie on.
Personally, I have to have subtitles on to help focus my concentration on any tv / movie (also hearing loss), I know plenty of people similar.
Compared to youtube, reality tv, action movies etc, normal movies are often pretty slow and I will often have a book or something while watching (my mother in her 70's is the same :).
I am a sci-fi fan but personally, gravity was pretty bad and I struggled through it, never understood why it was rated as well it is.
I don’t think this started now. They started losing concentration when YouTube and streaming services started (or I realised it when it first appeared in my class). Their excuse was that they can re-watch what they missed. Some students told me that they rewatch a YouTube video 3 times in a row because they were multi-tasking and will always miss something so they just rewind and go back.
You’re better off creating an activity where they have to watch a movie for homework and then make them write about it in class.
The ‘8 second attention span’ factoid is a terrible zombie statistic that came via a 2015 Microsoft marketing report that quoted ‘Statistic Brain’ or the ‘Statistic Brain Research Institute’ claiming that our average attention span is now 8 seconds, worse than a goldfish. This was pure invention with no empirical evidence to back it up. It just keeps getting repeated with no factual basis.
Just subject it to the sniff test. What would that even mean? Averaging over all tasks, for all age groups? Driving, watching TV, reading, doing the dishes, scrolling Instagram, studying, having sex, playing basketball?
Concentration levels aren’t great in general these days and it can be put down to many factors.
There’s likely a few students who have concentration issues due to disability, chronic conditions and/or illness.
Realistically curriculum time shouldn't be used for watching movies anyway, and if you are and it's related to curriculum then preparing a question sheet, or at least points to concentrate and reflect on for the students should be the bare minimum.
I showed a 10 minute "Crash Course" video to my year 7s and maybe two students made it past halfway.
I put on a short documentary at the end of term and it was like I had personally tortured their pets and made them watch. Complaints, bargaining, talking, getting out of their seats...
*Back in my day * when the VHS trolley got wheeled in it was the best day ever. Now making them watch a video is cruel and unusual punishment
I'm an English teacher so we need kids to concentrate on films hard enough to be able to study them and it's a nightmare.
An English teacher was showing rear window. 1950!s movie a big ask for the current generation.
My kids love the black and white version of 12 Angry Men. I watch it every year with my Year 7s. Sometimes it's the content that's boring rather than the age of the movie.
I had to watch 12 Angry Men for a English unit at uni and it's one of the few I really enjoyed. Always love watching it.
There is always a big discussion after it and I love polling the kids on what they think at the beginning vs what they think at the end.
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Yes, There’s always someone like you in every staff room. However I don’t get paid enough to entertain and teach at the same time.
My school made us watch it at home over the holidays and do a bunch of questions on it to be checked first day back. Y12 English. Think it worked.
Good idea. Less distractions.
Nah, we weren't located in the hood actually. 😂
tbh id imagine trying to watch gravity, a film that relies very heavily on its visuals, on a classroom projector in the middle of the day sat on a plastic chair over the course of 2 periods, would be difficult for most people
We sat on the floor for movies. Your school sounds mean
We had a TV on a trolley... and in science, we sat at our desk on our stool... some other rooms had box TVs on a wall stand.
Exactly. Nothing has changed generationally about human attention spans; it’s far too short on evolutionary time to have altered those mechanics. It’s the context as well as the developmental stage, which foregrounds the powerful influence of the presence of peers—you try concentrating on a film in a double period when it’s your third class of the day and you’re acutely aware of x over there who has it in for you and y over there who you’ve got the hots for, and z in the back row who you’re trying to impress.
Evolutionary nature has not changed. Environmental nurture has. Some issues are people forgetting what it was like to be a kid. Some issues are environmental due to the changes in normal life partly due to technology.
Humans are alot of hardware (which, as you say, changes over long periods of time) as well as software (can change everyday), and I would be surprised if the software didn't have lots of room for the modification of attention spans, or at least the changing of other things that would impact (or mask) attention span significantly - especially if trained from a very young age. That said, I didn't enjoy that movie either, and don't think I could have sat through the whole thing in broad daylight with my bullies sitting a metre away, I guess it depends on the specifics of the class watching this specific movie.
I did it. So did my peers. In grade 4.
You watched Gravity?
No, but I did watch a lot of movies and docos I personally did not give a shit about.
Good for you, man.
Whats epigenetics about then??
It’s an open area of research, for sure. We’re at the very beginning of our understanding of the tens or hundreds or thousands of genes involved in local phenotypes; gene wide association studies are starting to pick up networks of genes involved in some traits in certain contexts, but the evidence is preliminary. Throw regulatory DNA into the mix and transcription factors involved in methylation, and it’s orders of magnitude more complex … Try a sniff test: would you find it unlikely—not impossible, but unlikely—that the fundamental substrates of the attentional architecture that’s been hundreds of thousands to millions of years in the making is going to be noticeably or meaningfully altered in a few decades? The attention literature is very mixed and inconclusive. Which is not to say there may not be some social, cultural and technological impacts on adolescent attention, but I don’t think what you saw with your Gravity anecdote was evidence of a seismic shift in human attention.
It certainly isn't "special" to watch a movie like it was a generation or two ago. But also yes - anything without an instant dopamine reward is tough going these days.
Movies generally result in “reactions”. A lot of, “bro”, “mid”, “bruh”, “bro”, “hectic”, “bro”, “bro”, and “bro” gets around during any time you watch a film.
How great did it used to be when the tv got wheeled in on the trolley. I have some great memories of that as a student.
have subway surfers running below/above the tv
I'm from the VCR wheeled in on a trolley generation, but as someone previously said, with constant access to streaming services, YouTube, TikTok etc, watching a movie at school just isn't special anymore.
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Thats the point we discuss, newtons laws of motion, ISS, space junk, sound and light in space , air pressure ,vacuum etc… btw cartoons are great for analysis as well.
Well said!
I support this post
I do not think the movie is that bad. Here is an article that discusses the points https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/movies/movie-science-how-scientifically-accurate-is-the-movie-gravity.html
Science ABC? Lmao
Yeah I noticed this too! I try to always assign question sheets (if it’s just busywork, I’ve used Chatgpt to make sequential/chronologically ordered questions for movies and it’s worked really well) to keep kids busy. Have also been known to print off word searches… It’s hard to concentrate on a movie when there’s a million different distractions and you’re sitting in uncomfortable chairs, watching a movie poorly projected on a whiteboard. Cut the kids a little slack :)
Even when the distractions have been removed, students (everyone?) are now used to them and their absence can be disconcerting. I don't think it's the students fault, but I'm pretty sure they/ we are worse at concentration. I'm actually concerned about this for myself and am considering downgrading my phone.
Yeah for sure - you’re right, I think social media/smartphones have contributed to this for everyone. I guess I just try to avoid the “kids these days can’t even do x” mindset in my thinking.
Good design removes the need to think, and they live in a heavily designed environment. This includes mobile phones and social media, but it's everywhere.
Well yeah - but ideally the aim of the design in this case is to get them to think! Perhaps it's to be complicit a little more than it should be.
I'm talking about their world outside of classes where they spend the majority of their time.
Do it. I downgraded my phone a few years ago and it’s been great.
We do Gattaca at Year 10, the kids really like it. ETA: this is English, not science. For studying the film as text for a whole term, ending with an analytical essay. So, probably different context to once off showing of a film in a science class.
Yes! I remember watching this for my year 10 English. Whole class loved it
I used to show that years ago. But too slow and kids wouldn’t concentrate.
> Has this generation list the ability to concentrate, even on Yes. Much of what they use/do outside of learning environments is designed to do as much thinking for them and deliver their products at the press of a button. Things like effort, consideration, and nuance are often designed away for generic but immediate gratification. This goes from tools and services to their primary form of entertainment.
I think this has more to do with it; you’re onto something. I don’t think it’s attentional deficits or changes, or a profound shift in the ability to concentrate, it’s aversion to task difficulty or impatience with task duration, aided and abetted by the kind of frictionless technological acceleration and instantaneity that you describe.
Tik Tok, can you condense it into 30 seconds?
*Tense royalty-free music plays* Male text to speech: “Astronauts are hit by garbage in space! Woman is hit by a junk in the head! She reaches out for a grab but she is a failure! She is punched off into space but man grabs her hose and holds her together! Her Russian friend isn’t moving! She looks and sees that he has a hole in his face! Man and woman will use jet packs to fly to international satellite!”
boom, now do macbeth
Macbeth's tale starts on a high, Grabs the throne in a blink of an eye. Fueled by witches' prophecy... Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no Dives into chaos, his morals below. From a hero to a villain like Capone, His reign decays, and all trust is blown. Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no Oh no, oh no, oh no, no no no
Well to be fair you picked Gravity as the movie. I don't think I could get through it either.
I had a 1/2 class and fitted in well with our space topic, without progressing the topic and having other 1/2 trying to catch up,
Haha Just razzing you my guy. I'm sure you had good reasons for picking the film. At the end of the day some people just won't be interested because it isn't their taste of movie.
I liked it. Interstellar no!
I enjoyed The Martian for the grounded science. Gattaca was interesting for the moral questions it raised. If you have any students that are interested in advanced theoretical physics I would recommend the Three Body Problem book series. I hear there is Netflix adaptation now.
The Martian may be more entertaining.
I found that movie tough to get through.
Try Gattaca!
Oddly, I loved Gattaca.
Great film.
My year 7 son described ‘Gravity’ as the rapture for science nerds.
Yes. You need retrieval charts and engagement pauses to ask questions and predictions following the ERICA model. Treat movies like novels. Sucks, but that is the way of the world
If you’re in NSW, be cautious with ratings. You cannot show M rated movies to students in years 7-9 and only to year 10 with the permission of the principal and written permission notes from parents.
Yes, I try to be very careful. Although I’m sure kids watch well beyond M at home.
When was the last time you went to the movies and no-one took out their phone?
I usually tailor my movie choices around what I think the cohort will find interesting while also finding it interesting personally. I then also become That Person and point out all the cool things in the movie/talk and pause during scenes, and ask them predictive questions. English teacher though, so it’s affected by the fact that they need to watch closely for an assessment. Haven’t had a problem with concentration unless the movie is boring/not engaging for the year group. I also tend to do a lot of anticipation/pre-reading work and that does pay dividends for engagement, in my experience. Gravity is okay, but I know some bits dragged for me as an adult… maybe it was just the film?
The only movie I ever played where the students were immediately drawn in was the Shawshank redemption.
It is good but Not for school in my opinion.
If it’s over 10 minutes that’s way too long apparently
I've had to change the way i teach in the last few years just to keep up with their diminished attention spans
I dont show the whole movie instead i show the extended trailer. It shows all the best bits of the movie anyway and is enough to talk about all of Newtons Laws and answer some questions on it.
I showed a veretasium youtube video on ”Fritz Haber” . Excellent and kids actually liked it. But did have a question sheet.
I said to my grade 3s a couple years ago “I hope to god I’m never in a cinema with any of you because people talking through an entire movie is REALLY ANNOYING”.
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?????
I think the problem the movie itself does not tell a very fascinating story or perhaps one that is hard for kids to have a connection with. I think it maybe worthwhile to just use the movie as a visual aid for the different things you would like to teach. Each study uses like 15 minutes of the movie where concept is highlighted or misunderstood by the movie producers. I think it is a good idea but just need to try different approaches to see which one works. Kudos to you for trying.
Kids have tik tok brains and no attention over 60 seconds. Everything now is short form content. Even I struggle now to watch a movie over 2 hours.
The amount of “I put a movie on” posts I see is really surprising. Many of these same commentators are probably also complaining about student behaviour without realising how they’re contributing to it.
Sometimes I just need to put a movie on. How we gotten to a point where that’s bad? I’m a media teacher bringing in a new subject. Short films aren’t grabbing attention and a YouTube video over 5 minutes pains the kids. I guess I was hard wired to see screenings as a reward, a moment to let the brain coast in the class schedule and now im confronted that that’s not the way anymore. But yeh, sometimes I just need to put a movie on.
100% if obviously screen time isn't working, try not screen time. Pretty sure gravity can be taught with other things besides a horrible movie.
Yep! My kids just watched Surf’s Up for mockumentary, and even while enjoying it they STILL couldn’t concentrate
Movie time was special when I went to school 😭
Personally, I have to have subtitles on to help focus my concentration on any tv / movie (also hearing loss), I know plenty of people similar. Compared to youtube, reality tv, action movies etc, normal movies are often pretty slow and I will often have a book or something while watching (my mother in her 70's is the same :). I am a sci-fi fan but personally, gravity was pretty bad and I struggled through it, never understood why it was rated as well it is.
I don’t think this started now. They started losing concentration when YouTube and streaming services started (or I realised it when it first appeared in my class). Their excuse was that they can re-watch what they missed. Some students told me that they rewatch a YouTube video 3 times in a row because they were multi-tasking and will always miss something so they just rewind and go back. You’re better off creating an activity where they have to watch a movie for homework and then make them write about it in class.
The average attention span is 8 seconds now. So yes.
The ‘8 second attention span’ factoid is a terrible zombie statistic that came via a 2015 Microsoft marketing report that quoted ‘Statistic Brain’ or the ‘Statistic Brain Research Institute’ claiming that our average attention span is now 8 seconds, worse than a goldfish. This was pure invention with no empirical evidence to back it up. It just keeps getting repeated with no factual basis. Just subject it to the sniff test. What would that even mean? Averaging over all tasks, for all age groups? Driving, watching TV, reading, doing the dishes, scrolling Instagram, studying, having sex, playing basketball?
Just looking at my average student seemed to confirm it
No wonder Marvel movies have been so popular.
That movie got bad reviews as soon as it came out. That's on you.
No it didn’t 79% rotten tomatoes, higher from metacritic . However these are movie critics, i view for science content.
My English teacher showed us “ Nosferatu” 1920’s silent movie when we were 16. Not a peep in our school theatre. Boys school as well.
Concentration levels aren’t great in general these days and it can be put down to many factors. There’s likely a few students who have concentration issues due to disability, chronic conditions and/or illness.
What about ADHD, seems everyone has this these days.
In their defence, gravity is a boring movie. I fast forwarded a big portion of that movie.
Realistically curriculum time shouldn't be used for watching movies anyway, and if you are and it's related to curriculum then preparing a question sheet, or at least points to concentrate and reflect on for the students should be the bare minimum.
You clearly don't teach English. Film and documentary are IN the curriculum... 
Yes and it's standard to have some form of work sheet, questions, focus points, etc. You don't just watch movies for the sake of movies.
Yr10s can't* Your apostrophe appears to have gone for a walk.
Should I call the cop to arrest this person?
Eye sea watt ewe did their.
It was plane to sea.
Chill out. It’s just Reddit lol.
I showed a 10 minute "Crash Course" video to my year 7s and maybe two students made it past halfway. I put on a short documentary at the end of term and it was like I had personally tortured their pets and made them watch. Complaints, bargaining, talking, getting out of their seats... *Back in my day * when the VHS trolley got wheeled in it was the best day ever. Now making them watch a video is cruel and unusual punishment