Can Movie Theaters Survive?
I watched a Film Threat video about a recent Variety article attempting to address the relevancy of movie theaters in 2025. The article brings up some interesting issues like the cost of seeing a movie in a theater and the shortening of the theatrical window due to streaming. Commenting on the article, Chris Gore of Film Threat suggested that Hollywood “make better movies”. Gore went on to talk about how it’s cost prohibitive to see a lot of movies now, and the other YouTubers on the panel agreed. Discussion around price took up the bulk of the convo.
But I think the Film Threat gang and the Variety article are overlooking an important point. Probably the most important point.
A Bigger Issue
I do some work on the side that involves research. Most recently that research has involved the effect technology is having on young people. (It’s affecting us all, but the research I’ve been doing has been focused on kids and young adults.) Here are some crazy stats:
- 33% of teens spend more time socializing with close friends online than in person.
- 52% of teens sit in silence, on their smartphones, while hanging out with friends.
- The average American in 2025 spends 5 hours and 16 minutes on their phone a day–14% increase from 2024.
- On average, people will spend 5 years and 4 months of their lifetimes on social media.
- On average, American teens now spends a minimum of 8 hours per day on a screen. Some of this screen time is school work related, but more than 4 hours of it is spent watching videos or using social media.
- People on average now spend 93% of their day inside and in front of some type of digital device.
- A 2022 survey from the CDC found that 1 in 4 Americans are physically inactive.
- American kids spend less than 10 minutes a day outside in unstructured play compared to seven hours in front of a screen.
- Only 56% of Gen Z said they had any kind of romantic relationship in their teens. This is down from Gen X at 76% and Baby Boomers at 78%.
- A UCLA study recently found that nearly half of Zoomers (44.3%) think there is too much romance in TV and movies.
- And 47.5% don’t think sex is relevant to movies and TV shows.
- Jonathan Haidt reported in his book The Anxious Generation that the amount of time teens spend with friends has decreased by over 73% from 2003 to 2020.
- Gen Z spends 1/3 less time socializing with friends than people their age did a decade ago.
That’s not even a fraction of the data that’s available on things like screen time and social media use, but I think this is more than enough to make the point.
Going to the Movies is a Social Experience
Going out to the movies is a social thing. You may be sitting in the dark and ostensibly not talking to one another, but it is something that is generally done as a social activity. Even if you are the kind of person that goes to the movies by yourself, you are still partaking in a communal activity. You are among other people, enjoying something as a group. Laughing. Cheering. Possibly even crying.
How can the movie theater experience survive if people are more interested in spending all of their time with people (mostly strangers) on social media than they are in spending time with the people who are with them in the same room?
All of this has occurred in less than a generation. We weren’t equipped to deal with this pace of change, and we’ve barely begun trying to figure out how to deal with it nearly two decades after the first iphone hit the market and Facebook and Twitter began to see mainstream use.
Movies are About Humans
Movies are about humans. What makes us happy? What makes us sad? What drives us to do the things that we do? Why do we love? Why do we hurt? Why do we hurt others? What makes us human? Even the dullest movies are about this in some way.
But if we are at a point in society where we are less likely to do the things that make us human (socialize, have meals together, have sex, have children, drink together, experience culture together), how can movies survive anyway? How can culture survive? What will movies be about? Arguments between bots on X?
The way it looks to me, we are facing the loss of more than the movie theater experience if we can’t sort this out.
We are facing cultural annihilation.
What are Your Thoughts?
Well, those are my thoughts on the so-called relevancy of movie theaters (which is a change from what I said in 2021). Can movie theaters survive? Do you think screen time is a big factor or do you think I’m wrong on this? Tell me why or why not in the comments below. I’d love to read what you think about this issue, because I think it’s actually really important and worthy of discussion.
Thanks for reading. See ya in the Wasteland.
