> People may binge a series but they are still on their phones half of the time scrolling for dopamine.

This. Both movies and series are now FAR less popular (and profitable) than video games, and video games are far less popular than social media. Even the minority that still enjoys legacy media enjoys it WHILE consuming other media.

Movie theaters are in as much trouble as libraries, and blaming either of them for their decline in popularity without mentioning the root causes would be myopic.

The cost of all this is that nuance and the ability to have a single train of thought that lasts longer than the length of a TikTok video or tweet are dying.

> The cost of all this is that nuance and the ability to have a single train of thought

People aren't watching TikToks while video gaming. The rise of video games, and the success of narrative ones, should tell us that people engage with the content and focus. For hours at a time.

But they need to care about it, expect way more quality and are way less tolerant of mediocrity. That's sure not great for Hollywood producers, cry me a river.

Libraries are reinventing themselves in many places, IMHO they'll happily outlive movie theaters by a few centuries.

> People aren't watching TikToks while video gaming.

I'm aware that the plural of anecdote is not data, but I can say from personal experience that most of the people I know pick up their phones whenever an unskippable cut scene appears on screen. Many, many people no longer have the patience for narrative in any form and as a consequence literacy rates have been declining for years.

> Libraries are reinventing themselves in many places

They have no choice. People can't read anymore. Fifty four percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level.

People definitely watch YouTube videos while playing video games and play games on their phones while watching TV/movies.

Narrative video games are a tiny and obscure niche.

I’m not sure if it’s true but I’ve heard that the reason so many streaming shows are like twice as long as they should be to best-serve their stories, and are so repetitive, is because they’re written for an audience that’s using their phones while they “watch”.

I wonder if it's not that people are getting dumber or less able to hold attention; rather, that everyone is being more exposed to lowest common denominator material because of efficient distribution.

Reader's Digest was always there on the shelf at the store and was very commercially successful. Most people who consumed more advanced content ignored it.

> It’s all short form videos and posts with a 4th grade vocabulary now

We've had more publicly available educational content than ever with 40+ minutes videos finding their public. Podcasts have brought the quality of audio content to a new level, people pay to get additional content.

People are paying for publications like TheVerge, Medium and newsletter also became a viable business model. And they're not multitasking when watching YouTube or reading on their phone.

That's where I'd put the spotlight. And the key to all of it is, content length is often not dictated by ads (Sponsors pay by the unit, paid member don't get the ads) but by how long it needs to be.

If on the other hand we want to keep it bleak, I'd remind you that the before-the-web TV was mostly atrocious and aimed at people keeping it on while they do the dishes. The bulk of books sold where "Men come from Mars" airport books and movies were so formulaic I had a friends not pausing them when going to the bathroom without missing much.

Basically we accepted filler as a fact of life, and we're now asking the you generation while they're not bitting the bullet. And honestly, I can still read research papers but I completely lost tolerance for 400 pages book that could have been a blog post.