There was a time when cinema was a community based experience, sacred to those walls. If someone had to watch a movie, they had to wait for its release in cinemas or television. But today that sanctity of cinemas has been broken. With the introduction of reels on cinema, the whole act of movie watching has transformed into story telling for content creation. 

The Age Of Aesthetic Over Narrative 

In a cinema hall, you usually find people scanning a scene not for its emotional resonance, but for its instagramability. A movie is judged on the basis of its visual appearances rather than a good story. This shift has forced the filmmakers to move towards the most appealing trend. They think if a film does well on social media, then it is definitely going to be appreciated at the box office. 

Phones Have Become Our Second Screens

The most dangerous impact of social media is doom scrolling. This compulsive habit of doomscrolling until your brain gets exhausted has reduced our attention spans. Instead of watching the movie with whole concentration, we see people scrolling on their phones while sitting in the cinema hall. 

Instagram Developed FOMO 

According to social media, every film turns into a 24 hour rat race. If you did not watch a movie within 24 hours of its release, spoilers will be waiting for you on the internet. When you watch a movie just to join conversations around it, you have already lost the ability to have a personal connection with the story line or even have a spontaneous reaction to the movie. 

How To Reclaim The Experience

To fix the broken cinema culture, one needs to start living and stop dumping. This simply translates into putting the phones away while watching a movie, or ignoring the urge to watch the spoilers on the internet. True cinema happens when the audience appreciates the storyline when lights go down, and the digital world disappears. 

Conclusion 

Ultimately, the digital invasion of cinemas has more of a cultural impact rather than low people participation. Cinemas play an important role in our lives, therefore we need to reclaim the whole experience and ensure the magic of the silver screen. 

(Image credits: Magnific)

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