“The medium is the message…” Marshall McLuhan famously warned that the form in which a message is delivered embeds itself into that message, shaping how we think and interact with the world around us.
Movies and television are, at their core, a form of art — or at least they used to be. But lately, that priority has shifted. In many recent releases, dialogue sounds unnaturally explanatory, and plot points repeat themselves with curious redundancy. This makes stories structured less around the creation and expression of an idea, and more around easy comprehension.
The media doesn’t just deliver stories; it shapes how we experience and process information. When you sit down at the end of your day, tired or bored and seeking escape or relaxation, for most people, it’s almost a reflex: open TikTok.
In a research study by Keith Robert Head, evidence suggested that “rapid context switching between unrelated content pieces appears to fragment cognitive processing,” and “heavy TikTok and short-form video consumption correlates with measurable attention deficits, academic underperformance and neurobiological alterations in users.”
Watching media in short form shapes a chaotic mind, doubling down when you do so in an especially receptive mental state. Additionally, this content is rather unadmittedly designed to be addictive, though social media companies are quick to dispute that claim.
This overindulgence of social media and short-form content usage poses a threat to streaming platforms, losing their audiences. But rather than tackling the issue and actually producing captivating, well-executed shows or movies, many streaming platforms have deferred to an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” philosophy, intentionally writing plots for second-screen watchability.
In a podcast episode, Matt Damon, an American actor, producer and screenwriter most known for his role in “Good Will Hunting,” re-quoted what he described as increasingly common studio feedback: “… It wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”
When streaming platforms submit to this behavior rather than resist it, they perpetuate an already unhealthy habit and destroy the artistic process and product that film should be. Art, at its best, demands interpretation. It invites the viewer to infer, question and actually create their own meaning rather than passively receive it.
Thankfully, some shows resist this pressure to oversimplify and flatten their work. “Pluribus”, a 2025 series on AppleTV written and produced by Vince Gilligan, stands as an example of what filmmakers are still capable of.
The series is artfully shot, deliberately paced and uninterested in over-explaining itself. Every frame and camera angle carries weight, visually carrying the plot rather than spelling it out through dialogue. “Pluribus” regards ambiguity not with confusion, but rather as an opportunity for interpretation and independent thought.
The result of streaming platforms instructing producers to dumb down their plot is a lazy excuse justified by the rise of second-screen scrolling. Submitting to this logic undermines the whole purpose of artistic creation. When films are simply made for quick production and easy engagement metrics, they may succeed as content, but it loses its humanity and no longer survive as art.
