Ah, handphone etiquette – one of my pet peeves!
I’ve got a lot to say about this one.
I stumbled upon this very interesting article today from the New York Times (here), about how an entire classical music concert was abruptly halted by the conductor of the New York Philharmonic because of an inconsiderate concert attendee who refused to turn off his phone even though it had been ringing non-stop for about 5 good minutes during the concert performance.
I mean, seriously?
This is a concert by the New York Philharmonic at the Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, and this is probably one of the last few concert venues on earth you’d expect to find such neanderthalic behaviour.
What gives?
It’s bad enough you didn’t heed the call to turn your phone off at the start of the show, and worse still that when it rang for a good 5 minutes, you for whatever inexplicable reason decided to let it keep ringing.
In my opinion there are 3 degrees of handphone sins:
1) Forgetting to turn your phone off or put it to silent mode, and it rings during the concert.
Firstly folks, on a separate note – what’s the difference between turning your phone off and putting it to silent?
Why can’t we all just turn our phones off instead of putting it to silent and risk having the vibrations disturb people during the concert?
It’s not as if you are going to take any calls or answer any messages during the performance right?
Er…right?
Anyway, I’m fine with either turning the phone off or putting it to silent, although personally I always switch my phone completely off throughout a performance.
(Saves phone battery too.)
Forgetting to do either is a big sin, but I understand that it could happen to the best of us.
2) Forgetting to turn your phone off or put it to silent mode, and it rings during the concert. And you still let it ring.
This is highly unforgivable.
This is exactly what happened in the Avery Fisher Hall, and I’m sure you must have experienced this at some point in your life too.
What brings a person to not want to turn his or her handphone off even though it’s making so much noise that it can be heard three rows away?
Are they really so engrossed in the performance that they can’t hear their own phone ring, even though fifty other people around them are all clearly distracted by it?
It boggles the mind.
Perhaps they are trying to “act blur” and hope the ringing just stops and no one is able to exactly pinpoint who the culprit was, because by taking their phone out and turning it off, they are immediately being recognised as the guilty person?
3) Forgetting to turn your phone off or put it to silent mode, and it rings during the concert. And you still let it ring. And finally, when the ringing stops and we all heave a sigh a relief and turn our attention back to the performance, we hear a loud “HELLO?? WHO IS THIS???”
OK to be fair, this has never happened to me at a concert before, but it has certainly happened in smaller functions like at a wedding ceremony or a regular church service and stuff like that.
Words truly fail me whenever I encounter such a scenario.
All I can do is shake my head and sigh.
Anyone who commits handphone sin number 3 is truly a “champion” in every sense of the word.
Finally, I can’t discuss the 3 degress of handphone sins without mentioning one of my pet peeves in theatres:
Pet Peeve: Replying to messages during a play such that the glare of the handphone causes a huge distraction and disturbance to all around you.
This if one of the biggest pet peeves I have when it comes to theatre performances, and IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.
Some people seem to think that it is perfectly OK to do this, but as far as I’m concerned the glare of the handphone in a completely dark theatre is so distracting that I find it an extremely inconsiderate act.
(Sometimes the glare even hurts my eyes a bit, especially if it is near to me.)
And nope, I’m sorry – messaging only during scene changes is still not acceptable.
I understand your good intentions but that is still a no-no.
Unless your child is about to be delivered, or there is an emergency in the workplace or at home, or aliens have just invaded the earth, I don’t see why you can’t wait till the end of the play or at least till intermission to reply that message.
Besides, if it were really that urgent you’d probably leave the theatre and not still sit there messaging away.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about handphone sins.
There is a sequel to the article from NY times – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/nyregion/ringing-finally-stopped-but-concertgoers-alarm-persists.html?_r=1
Patron X was filled with guilt and had been sleepless for 2 nights consequent to the embarrassing event. The conductor had since accepted his apologies and both agreed that there were positive learning points from this event. Hopefully, this is a lesson to be learnt for many, which is, to remind ourselves to be considerate and respectful of people around us by silencing mobile phones accordingly.
I have another observation lately. People are very engrossed with Ipads, tablets, smartphones that there is a tendency that they can’t even disconnect themselves for an hour or more. To a certain degree, I find it a bit rude to even use them in meetings or over lunch/dinner meetings. Not unless, there is an absolute urgent call that came in (Even if calls came in, best is to disconnect and avoid answering until meeting is over). Otherwise, it is good to leave emails and face-book updates for later.
Unfortunately, as we grow closer to technology, we drift apart from the nearest folks present around us. People have also the tendency to use them as a way to look busy somewhat.
Social etiquette requires effort and let’s start now. Taking whatever is the norm for granted now may not necessarily be the right thing to follow.
Kkat, thanks for your comments. Yup, I don’t want to sound too “righteous” or anything, but unfortunately, this is what I feel is one of the biggest problems in society nowadays – being far too engrossed and attached to one’s phone. (I’ve always been wanting to write one mega blog post on this.)
I think you’ve more or less covered all the points. I think it’s a bit disturbing to see people being so attached to their phones such that they can’t go half a minute without being on their phones. I see people walking on the streets with their eyes glued to their phones. I see people crossing roads with their eyes glued to their phones. I see people having meals together with their eyes glued to their phones.
And most of the time they are merely surfing Facebook, Twitter, playing games or messaging. I concede that some of the messaging might perhaps be important…but realistically speaking, I think we can safely conclude that 95% of what they do on their phones can be done later, at a more opportune time.
It’s just sad to see how the advancement in smartphone technology has made all of us so unnecessarily-attached to our phones.
And that is one major reason why I’m very resistant to getting an iPhone. Very happy with my relatively-ancient Nokia, haha!
smartphone addiction:
http://www.socialnomics.net/2011/08/04/smartphone-addiction-good-or-bad/