The Death of Depth
Modern Media and the Erosion of Creativity
I’ve spent more time than I care to admit reflecting on the creative industry these days. I’m certainly not the first to observe that social media has ground our attention spans down to the quick. We’ve become grazers, barely pausing long enough to grasp a thought before drifting off in search of the next flashy, fleeting distraction.
In our relentless chase for the next big thing, we’re sacrificing something priceless — we’re losing depth.
True creativity — which demands patience, focus, and the willingness to wade into complexity — is now an endangered species.
The Echo Chamber Effect
This is further exacerbated by the algorithms that populate our social media feeds, which reinforce our biases, turning them into echo chambers that filter out anything unfamiliar or challenging, isolating us from the very diversity of perspectives that fosters creativity and intellectual growth.
These curated realities we inhabit dull our critical thinking and imagination — discussions narrow into oversimplified fragments, reduced to memes and soundbites that strip away any and all complexity and nuance required for real understanding.
Depth Disappears in Entertainment
I remember a time, not that long ago, when entertainment meant diving deep into a world populated by characters, stories, and philosophies that often forced us to confront our personal values and beliefs. Those depths are generally gone from most mainstream media. On the rare occasions when depth does appear, it often remains largely unseen — and unappreciated.
Fans and reviewers alike have become so accustomed to quick, shallow thrills that anything more substantial tends to go unnoticed. Art has become what’s flashy, new, and immediately gratifying.
Anything deeper is lost in the shuffle.
The Obsession with Surface Novelty
The irony is that most entertainment today relies on novelty — yet nothing feels original. Fans and critics approach new releases with a weary, “show me something I haven’t seen” attitude. This obsession with shallow novelty drains the soul of creativity, leaving us in a never-ending search for the next gimmick. This eventually leads to apathy and chronic boredom.
When society grows bored, it grows cruel. We see it everywhere: in comment sections, endless hot takes, and the piling on of public figures. Apathy has evolved into cynicism, and cynicism into cruelty.
The Forgotten Role of Art as Allegory
Historically, art has always used stories, symbols, and archetypes to explore deeper truths. Allegory is the very lifeblood of storytelling, giving us a way to grapple with profound concepts through archetypical myth. But today, art’s role as a mirror for society is largely unnoticed. We don’t try to peer beyond the surface; we miss the allegory, the nuance. This erosion of understanding is killing our connection to meaning in art.
The Erosion of Shared Touchstones
This erosion extends to our shared cultural touchstones. Once, certain books, films, and albums served as common reference points, uniting people in conversation and reflection. They became the lenses that defined the worldviews of entire generations. These shared moments are rare today. Media consumption is so fragmented and personalized that these collective experiences are disappearing.
Without shared cultural touchstones, art’s ability to unify or challenge society fades. This means we’re losing the rare moments when creativity could bring us together, push boundaries, or offer new ways of understanding the world.
The Decline of Depth in Society
These shared experiences fuel new movements in the arts but also drive innovation in science, technology, and social progress. Without them, we risk an era of conformity and intellectual complacency — after all, the comm device from Star Trek inspired the flip phone — not the other way around.
A society that no longer engages with complex ideas stagnates. When we reduce critical issues to hashtags and consume news in headlines, we create an environment ripe for misinformation and shallow understanding. Depth, once the driver of discourse and change, has been replaced by superficial sensationalism.
Where Do We Go From Here?
When art loses its depth, it ceases to be art — it becomes mere entertainment, something to pass the time. Our culture is hemorrhaging its artistic vitality, and we’re only beginning to see the consequences. If we continue down this path, it will become just another disposable commodity, valued for its surface-level novelty and nothing more.
This isn’t just about entertainment — it’s about the very fabric of human society. Art and creativity aren’t luxuries — they are the soul of civilization. When people lose the ability to dream, to hope, to see beauty in something deeper, society begins to erode. We risk an entire generation growing up in a world where cynicism and hate have replaced hope and wonder, where creativity has withered, leaving us with a culture devoid of imagination.
We are risking something immense here: the death of creativity.
A Call to Reignite Hope and Depth
We need a change. We need a reawakening of the values that brought art and storytelling to life. We need to reclaim the space for depth in art, to create with meaning and purpose, to engage in narratives that challenge and inspire us. When we dream, we build a future.
Without that, there is only decay.
This isn’t about nostalgia; it’s about survival. Creativity is the lifeblood of culture, and if we don’t rekindle it, if we don’t resist the slow death of depth, we risk losing not just art, but ourselves.
Originally published on Medium