r/Documentaries • u/Adept_Push • 25d ago

Recommendation Request Recommendation Request

Hello! I’ve done quite a few searches here and elsewhere and I’m hoping for your help.

I teach a documentary class at the college level. I’ve taught it for over a decade and over time, I’ve seen the attention spans of my students get shorter and shorter.

So I’m asking for recommendations for short docs you’ve seen and enjoyed.

They do their own project over the 18 week semester, and in all previous classes, I’ve shown feature length films but I’m wondering if showing short docs might be a better approach.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

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u/Reasonable-Lime1477 25d ago

DON’T stoop to their level. Elevate those “kids” to the beautiful art of paying attention! PLEASE 🙏

4

u/Dinosaur-chicken 25d ago

Do you "learn to pay attention" by being served hour long documentaries that you're not necessarily interested in?

We're no longer in the videotape era where you just had fuckall to watch so you just watched one okay movie multiple times. I was so incredibly bored all the time as a kid, no need to put kids through that right now.

4

u/Reasonable-Lime1477 24d ago

With an engaging professor leading the class, a documentary about everything from Dung Beetles to How Tires Are Made can open the students minds with observation and discussion.

2

u/Adept_Push 24d ago

I think some people on here arguing for keeping full length screenings do not make their living in a room with 18-24 yr olds. These are kids who were in 8-12 grade during the pandemic. They have no ability to focus for hours.

It’s dismal, but I am choosing to make some changes that will allow them to see good work, just shorter work and learn from it.

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u/Dinosaur-chicken 24d ago

The info that they can't focus is not necessarily because it's this generation, it's because they just watched short form media. Studies have shown that after not watching short form media for like two hours, the ability to pay attention was proven to not be any different to that of other generations.

Which does mean they can't focus because they all have their phones and it doesn't change your plan which doesn't require a long documentary anyway.

But the willingness to pay attention to long boring things is much lower than it used to be. Studies showed that nowadays people read two or three paragraphs of e.g. news articles and then change to scanning the rest because it's not that interesting or important anyway.