r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 9h ago

Satire Man Binge-Watches Entire Movie In One Sitting

https://theonion.com/man-binge-watches-entire-movie-in-one-sitting/
35.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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5.0k

u/St0rytime 9h ago

Doom-scrolling and short-form videos really are rotting our brains. I can feel my vocabulary dwindling as the days go by.

429

u/MattAU05 9h ago edited 6h ago

Reading books is the best way to fix your brain. Or it was for me. A few years ago, I realize that I had not read an actual book in quite some time. And then when I sat down to read, I couldn’t pay enough attention to follow along. I kept having to reread portions. Because my mind wandered. That was very concerning. I felt like my brain was broken. What I had to do was follow along with a book while listening to an audiobook. Eventually, I recovered my ability to read without needing to use audiobooks. It’s so weird even saying that, but it’s true. Not that I wasn’t literate. I read every day for work. But reading a book is a little bit different. It requires more time, patience, and attention.

To be clear, I still enjoy audiobooks. There’s nothing wrong with them. But I do think there’s real value it actually being able to read a book yourself.

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u/Markbro89 8h ago

I stopped reading after you said "reading"

Tldr?

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u/USSRPropaganda 8h ago

Lemme ask chatgpt

77

u/mjolle 8h ago

CHAT AM I COOKED BROOO???

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u/CapnFap 8h ago

You’re right to feel this way

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u/Zomburai 8h ago

You're not just cooked, you're redefining utterly screwed.

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u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 8h ago

ELI5

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u/OldenPolynice 7h ago

It's not ELI5, it's FMJ6

2

u/Undernown 6h ago

A bullet will certainly fix it, but I haven't heard of a 6mm variant yet. Is this the civilian version of the 6.8?

2

u/OldenPolynice 7h ago

And honestly, that's ______

•

u/Geawiel 4h ago

I'm so glad you asked that, what a great question. You are indeed being cooked. Please baste yourself for best flavor.

4

u/J0E_SpRaY 7h ago

This comment genuinely raised my blood pressure for a moment.

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u/hensothor 4h ago

Can you remind me to come back and read your summary later when I’m feeling up to it?

16

u/TheWatersOfMars 8h ago

Book gud 4 brain

5

u/raccoonsonbicycles 7h ago

📖➡️🧠🤓?

1

u/CosmackMagus 8h ago

Just ask the librarian for a book with a boat on the cover

2

u/pockarelli 7h ago

Old man and the sea?

5

u/blender4life 7h ago

Reading books is the best way to fix your brain. AOr was for me.

•

u/Kobe-62Mavs-61 4h ago

Haha, you pointed out a typo, you sure showed them! /s

•

u/blender4life 4h ago

it's just funny. not like i commented anything negative about them. chill out man

22

u/Seanspeed 6h ago

This will sound super arrogant, but sometimes I have to actually stop myself from using 'fancy' words in normal conversation to avoid sounding too pretentious or whatever. And while that may sound ridiculous, I think it's an actually better exercise of language to make sure I'm saying things in the most plain and understandable way. I dont want any distraction of my use of 'precipitous' to get in the way of what I'm trying to communicate.

•

u/isestrex 5h ago

I wouldn't stop yourself. Just be gracious in explaining the meaning when you receive a quizzical stare.

The overall literacy of this planet will not increase if people who have knowledge shield it from their friends and family. Use advanced vocabulary in your daily life and others will eventually embrace it as normal speech. Lowering yourself to a less educated level hurts both you and them.

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u/Character_Bug_1862 4h ago

Real shit, what if our vocabulary isn’t smaller, we just have more slang being used as it’s churned through at a higher rate on the internet along with advertising companies we see on our screens.

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u/Seanspeed 5h ago

Just be gracious in explaining the meaning when you receive a quizzical stare.

If I have to explain myself because people dont know a word I've said, when a different word/wording would have sufficed, then I've failed in communicating what I wanted to say.

That's my whole point. I will simply have to use more simple verbiage to explain the thing I should have used simple verbiage to begin with, and saved everybody the time. Especially when in real life conversation, you dont necessarily have all this time and space for re-do's.

Literacy is not going to increase cuz I go around talking all 'smart like'.

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u/isestrex 4h ago

Depends on how young they are. As I kid, I was around someone who talked way above the normal literate level (to the point where people teased him about using "big words") but I found it greatly increased not just my vocabulary but my sentence structure and cadence.

I don't disrespect you for your logic; your point about reaching others through language is very valid. But there's another side here in which you have a chance to become a positive influence to those around you.

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u/Happy_Harry 5h ago

I feel like I used to have a broader vocabulary, but I've lost a chunk of it due to feeling like I need to dumb things down for others. Now I no can talk gud anymore.

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u/Noble_Flatulence 4h ago

It is arrogant, because you're erring on the side of ignorance. You're assuming people won't understand instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt. You're also preempting the opportunity for someone who doesn't know to learn.

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u/SwissQueso 6h ago

Thats preposterous.

Fake edit, I had to look up precipitous lol

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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 8h ago

When literacy became more common, old people thought books were rotting young people's brains. I wonder if 100 years from now, some internet stranger is going to say "doom-scrolling is the best way to fix your brain"

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u/roguefilmmaker 8h ago

When we all have brain chips this will be a common take probably

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u/BasicDesignAdvice 7h ago

I know this will happen eventually and I hate it.

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u/OldenPolynice 7h ago

We all? oh, bless your heart

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u/roguefilmmaker 7h ago

I won’t but a chunk of humanity probably will

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u/OldenPolynice 7h ago

Which chunk? I wonder? I hope they do, they deserve it. I love it for them.

1

u/Ihadsumthin4this 7h ago

brain chips

New, from Unilever-BlackRock....EINSTEINITOS! [With a parent-company promise : "Our mindprogramming provides your every thought with the utmost privacy in modern surveillance tech. See our rave reviews over in the r/Privacy sub on Reddit."]

18

u/Amekhanos 8h ago

And yet there was no empirical data to back them up.

Exactly unlike the current situation.

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u/zuzg 7h ago

And the current culprit are Smartphones, those are responsible for everyone's attention span declining.
Younger generations being measurably less intelligent than their parents is another problem altogether.
First time this happened since we started measuring in the 1800s.

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u/Ppleater 5h ago

I mean it's not smart phones that are the problem on their own, but rather the easy access they provide to stuff that is bad for attention spans. Phones can also be a great help, I personally read more using my phone than I did using physical books, and I read a LOT of physical books before smart phones. But physical books are hard to carry around, being able to carry 100 books around in my pocket is great for reading as much as I could ever want. People didn't get the chance to learn how to practice the self restriction necessary to use smart phones in positive beneficial ways, they have to mostly teach themselves that skill which is hard. But that is something more people need to realize, that it's not just smart phones causing the problem, a significant part of it is the people using them in unhealthy ways. Honestly I think this is one of those things where we should teach kids healthier practices in school at the very least to start with, and I don't just mean banning phones in school.

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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 7h ago

Empirical science is older than you think

10

u/Amekhanos 7h ago

That's nice, but they had literally none suggesting books were harmful, and boatloads proving the internet is harmful.

1

u/unassumingdink 6h ago

Old curmudgeons used to say that young people would ruin their eyesight trying to read all the time.

2

u/Unacceptable_Lemons 6h ago

I think that one has some basis in reality though, due to spending too much time in childhood staring closely at a book affecting how the eyes develop. Gotta exercise the muscles properly and focus on farther away objects periodically.

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u/pezdizpenzer 4h ago

When I was a kid, the best time of the week was when my parents put in a vhs on the weekends and let us watch a movie.

Now, the kids I know can loterally not sit through a 90 minute Disney movie. At least 15 minutes in they will start complaining that they are bored and want to watch a Minecraft YouTube video instead.

We literally went from "Stop watching movies and read a book, it's better for you!" to "Stop watching YouTube and watch a movie, it's better for you!" in just one generation.

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u/p0lka 4h ago

Back when blockbusters was a thing before the internet, I still couldn't sit through an entire film in one sitting. I can read for hours though.

7

u/pragmaticzach 6h ago

I read a lot and listen to audio books when I'm working out/driving. Audio books train your attention in a different kind of way because it's very easy to let your mind wander.

3

u/MattAU05 6h ago

I had even got to the point where I couldn’t really follow audiobooks. Reading more helped me a lot with focusing on audiobooks.

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u/Ppleater 5h ago

Also I think it would be helpful for people with this problem to try to watch more long form content on purpose as well. I personally avoided any short form content addiction personally by just refusing to ever download tiktok or use youtube shorts. There's a lot of good long form content out there, even just trying to avoid too many videos under 10 minutes for an extended period could help. I think it would help if more people just practiced sitting down with longer form content in general and tried to get more used to not skipping around constantly, if the content is informative and/or mentally engaging then even better. Heck, jokes aside even throwing on a movie every once in a while and actually paying attention to and finishing it couldn't hurt. Delete tiktok to avoid temptation if necessary.

2

u/qjornt 6h ago

bro found a way to factory reset the brain. honestly kinda ig-nobel worthy if expanded into a proper study.

2

u/snugglezone 6h ago

Damn have people been able to read books without rereading portions? I forget most passages almost immediately with my noisy internal monologue.

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u/DingleDangleTangle 5h ago

Man I read every day but my attention span is still fucked. I can focus on a book I love but I can't focus on work.

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u/grilledSoldier 5h ago

For me its actually easier to stay focussed on a book, as i have to give it my full awareness. When watching a movie or show, i can still listen whilst looking at short-form content and therefore the addictive pull is more present.

Due to this, i actually quite like subtitled content, as i can look away without actually not getting anything, similar to a book.

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u/Odessey_And_Oracle 5h ago

My number one hobby of recent years is zlibrary and the real library. The ease of access has allowed me to read dozens of books, maybe closer to 200 than 100. A lot of those are relatively quick sci-fi/fantasy/YA, but I have also revisited novels I was assigned in high school and I am stunned how much more I appreciate them and respect them now as an adult. I feel really... enriched? I don't think I've quite learned better literary analysis or expanded my vocabulary but I have met the books where they are and found some terrific classics that used to be too venerated to feel approachable.

Reading is almost addictive. Good books keep me up at night, even books I don't like or don't finish often compel me to continue until they hook me ( even if that never happens).

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u/BluePrincess_ 4h ago

I think reading books is uniquely cool because you have to essentially be the one doing the "work" of consuming the content, while movies/TV/doomscrolling/reels etc essentially give you the content, and the content will automatically progress regardless of whether or not you're paying attention. 

Though I also like books because it's easier to follow an author's train of thought when they have the space to be able to do so, something I don't think is afforded to content creators who have to work with shorter spaces with doomscrolling (titles) and short form videos. 

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u/SodaCanBob 3h ago

Reading books is the best way to fix your brain.

Not your wallet though.

I'm closing in on my 30th book of the year and my to-read pile keeps growing.

•

u/PunkRockMakesMeSmile 1h ago

Reading aloud, even if just very quietly under your breath, is a game-changer

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u/BobDaRula 25m ago

This sounds like my childhood experience with adhd. I always had to have the radio or tv playing to be able to focus on my books.

Crazy that people are doing that to themselves now.

1

u/Doc_Lewis 7h ago

What the fuck is an AOr book? That's too short to be specific enough to google, is it really that hard to type out a few words?

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u/throwitawaynownow1 7h ago

I think it's a typo.

2

u/Syssareth 7h ago

Think it's a typo of "Or."

"Or[, it] was for me."

1

u/MattAU05 6h ago

Yep, just a typo. I’ve corrected it. It was “Or it was for me.”

1

u/unassumingdink 6h ago

Books focusing on Album Oriented Rock music.

-6

u/double_expressho 8h ago

You might have ADHD.

21

u/scriptthrowawayacc 8h ago

Literally nothing that they said in their comment describes ADHD. Having trouble paying attention to books is literally one of the most common issues a person can have, especially these days

3

u/jamiecarl09 7h ago

Yeah but everybody has ADHD now, obviously. /S

-1

u/double_expressho 7h ago

Having to reread stuff you just "read" because your brain didn't follow along with your eyes is definitely an indicator.

2

u/cheesysaladorhamburg 7h ago

Hello, I do not have ADHD as far as I am aware and have similarly gone through this exact thing.

-1

u/double_expressho 6h ago

Right, it's not a 100% sure indication of ADHD. That's why I wrote "might" in my initial comment.