The potent mix of capitalism, social media, and information overload has rendered most “stories” brief, disconnected, and designed for consumption rather than connection. Think TikTok reels, Instagram Stories, or the news cycle.
These structural changes are mirrored in our own shrinking capacity to engage with narrative. Both telling and listening to a story require deep attention, and we increasingly lack the patience for it. I reach for my phone while reading, my spouse listens to audiobooks at double speed, and my Gen Z sister skips dialogue in shows. We lack not just present time to devote to a story but also past time to draw upon, the temporal distance between events and their telling that traditional narrative requires. When all time is flattened into the present, narrative form begins to erode. Instant communication collapses tenses into an interminable “now,” and live streams keep us there. Finally, storytelling demands leisure, or at least a relaxed mind, since immersion requires the mental margin to forget ourselves and linger in the unfolding. That capacity for temporal extension—for losing oneself inside a story—is becoming harder and harder to exercise.
Brooks, Han, and the psychological trends we see all account for the changes in how we relate to narratives. What’s missing, however, is a more proactive dimension: storytelling is not just lost but is being reshaped as well. The rise of “content” is both a symptom of market forces and a sign of an aesthetic and epistemic pivot that reflects the current mood. We no longer trust the emotional cadence that traditional narrative imposes, and plot-driven storytelling no longer persuades when reality resists explanation and the search for meaning feels burdensome.