What is the second Screening effect? Is it ruining our ability to interpret and appreciate media to its fullest?

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If you’ve been to the movies recently, you might be able to spot an abysmal difference between a cinema session today and five years ago. I won’t discuss movie quality since that’s based on opinions, but anyone is able to conclude that movies are designed for a distracted audience.

Attention triggers like action scenes are more frequently used not to serve the plot, but to capture the attention of the audience at strategic points of a film or show. With an inattentive audience, critical points need to be reminded, over-explanation is abundant, and the plot is reiterated excessively with voice-overs, acting, and music. The industry staple screenwriting principle “Show don’t Tell” has changed into “Show and Tell”.

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Why we scroll in the Movies

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There was a point in time when going to the movies was a special, unique experience and undoubtedly the best way to watch a movie. Times have changed, renting a movie to watch at home has been replaced with scrolling through Netflix to look for something to watch to pass the time.
If our perception of movies changed from being something special, rare, and valuable that brought the whole family together, to something we can do every day when we’re bored, it’s no surprise that scrolling became an integral part of the experience.
If we’re texting, “doomscrolling”, and buying clothes while a show or a movie is on, movie producers won’t try to change that; they’ll just work around it by making movies adequate for this type of experience.

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Real-time discussion and the Trending Factor

Phone use being incorporated in the process of media consumption also brings out some new opportunities for viewers to interact with each other.
Twitter threads, Reddit discussions, or just discussions in a friend group chat are an essential part of the experience.
The newest episodes (and more recently, due to binge watching, the newest season) are discussed immediately after the premiere, and comments are given live while the episode is still happening. This makes it hard to be online while not getting spoiled, which only fuels the need to rapidly consume media.
The conversation at the corporate coffee break has evolved into an online, late-night, 2-hour-long discussion immediately after the premiere.

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“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”- Herbert Simon

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Conclusion:

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While the decrease in media quality is a subjective topic, it’s undeniable that phones are a crucial part of the experience now, and producers have adapted their work accordingly.
Whether phones play an even more active role in the experience is entirely up to how our habits as an audience will keep evolving in the future, but as of now, there’s no telling how second-screening will change the way we consume media.

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