On the direction of the trend, Chamath’s prediction is supported by post‑2021 data.

• A Deloitte Digital Media Trends survey of U.S. Gen Z found that watching TV or movies at home ranks only fifth among their top entertainment activities, behind video games, music, browsing the internet, and social media; only about 10% named TV/movies as their favorite pastime, versus much higher shares in older cohorts. Commentators on the study explicitly warned this likely reflects a permanent shift rather than something that will converge to older generations’ habits as Gen Z ages.【1search0】

• A 2025 AP‑NORC poll shows most Americans now prefer to watch new releases via streaming at home rather than in theaters, and the North American box office, while modestly up year over year, remains more than 20% below pre‑pandemic levels, indicating that going out to tentpole movies has not regained its former centrality.【0news16】

• Surveys of younger audiences show their media attention is dominated by short‑form, social‑first content on smartphones. A Deloitte‑cited survey reported nearly half of Gen Z prefer social‑first content to traditional entertainment, and about 88% of 13–24‑year‑olds watch video weekly on their phones. A Gen Z media executive in that coverage flatly states that “social media is the new water cooler,” i.e., day‑after conversations now center on viral clips and creators rather than last weekend’s movie.【0search3】【0search0】

• Other polling finds large shares of Gen Z have never seen many historically canonical films, recognize fewer famous movie quotes, and are more likely to consume media via smartphones than to treat a TV or cinema screen as essential, underscoring the erosion of a shared movie canon across generations.【1news16】

• Industry research on viewing contexts notes there are now fewer tentpole, ‘water‑cooler’ TV/film moments overall, with much media consumption happening alone and fragmented across platforms, even as cinema still leads for the relatively rare co‑viewing occasions that remain.【0search1】

At the same time, there are notable counterexamples—Barbenheimer (Barbie and Oppenheimer’s 2023 double‑feature phenomenon) and youth‑driven events like A Minecraft Movie’s rowdy, cosplay‑filled screenings show that big films can still become cultural moments, including for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.【1search12】【1search14】【1news20】 But these are spikes against a backdrop where movies occupy a smaller share of young people’s attention and where shared conversation has migrated toward social platforms.

Overall, by late 2025 the evidence indicates that younger cohorts do still care about movies, but less and less in the traditional, culturally central, Monday‑morning‑water‑cooler sense compared with older generations, and that their primary cultural “center” has shifted to games and social media. That makes Chamath’s normalized prediction—long‑term decline in the cultural centrality of movies for younger generations—directionally right, even if his wording that his generation was the “last” to care is somewhat overstated.