I just found an interesting behavior of my recent life -- I hardly finish a movie. I didn't finish any movie I rented from Netflix (I suspended my subscription then). Recount by HBO, the kind of political drama I though I love; National Treasure 2, Dark Knight, the movies with visual effects which might save me some brain; then even American Pie series, the stupid laugh I tried to get from. All of them. I closed the DVD player within 30 minutes and never opened it again. I first thought my taste might change, but after trying all kinds of movies, I finally concluded that it has nothing to do with the genres.
It's not like I am too busy to have two hours watching a movie. I can still watch several episodes of TV series in a row for more than two hours. I realized that the only reason to explain this symptom is that my attention phases out very quickly. It's more like if I have two hours, instead of waiting for a whole storyline to start out, introduce the background and reach some minor peaks and then a major peak, I would rather go straight to that point. (The slow path of movies makes me crazy.) Then sitcom comes into play. A 20-minute episode offers instant entertainment. It makes me laugh before my patience goes away. The length and the amout of laughs provided by How I Met Your Mother & The Big Bang Theory go perfect with my current condition.
It's ironic that what research requires most is a long span of attention. To trial and error, to wait for inspiration coming, to build up structured arguments. Hopefully why I have been going down to the opposite road on the entertainment side is because the long-span attention in my brain is partitioned off for what really matters.
