i think the whole point is not being able to check your phone adds to the human experience
Also, let's not let this "human" experience stuff slide, what it really means is "a late 1990's to early 2000's experience". It's not like pyrotechnics, large screens and giant electronic speakers are anything you would experience prior to 100 years ago.
If you don't want people doing certain things with their phones, then make it clear what is and isn't acceptable and combat it directly. For example, give everyone a wristband, and explain exactly what it's for. It's your one warning/get out of etiquette jail free card. If they have to come and tell you to stop doing something you were already warned about, they take the wristband. If they have to tell you again, you're out.
A comment higher up says treat people like adults. Adults are not adult adults. They are more like monkeys that compulsively do things and then maybe, only maybe think if what they did was appropriate or not.
It basically boils down to: if you want to go to the concert, you set aside the smartphone for a while. If not, don't go.
> what it really means is "a late 1990's to early 2000's experience"
Calling it a 'human experience' seems rather apt. When you're plugged into your smartphone frequently, you're not plugged into now; when you're playing on your computer instead of experiencing your immediate surroundings, it'd be more apt that to say that you're not partaking in the human experience, but an internet experience.
'Human experience' is apt, just like 'internet experience' would be apt for those that choose computer interaction.
Depending on what you're doing on your phone, I would say it's the ultimate human experience, an almost constant connection to a global community. What's more human than being part of a community?
I think the problem is that people assume that more human is better, when any extreme generally has some downsides. Constant connection to the group has its problems. Being spread between many groups and streaming to keep up to date with their news can spread people thin and stress them out.
> You cannot expect hardened smartphone addicts to follow directives that crossgrain their addiction. The only reason harsh policies like this are being enacted is because wrist-slaps and pleas do not work.
I think couching it in terms of addiction and people's inability to control themselves is taking it too far and brushing any problems under the rug. Establish norms. Enforce compliance. Once someone gets kicked out of a concert they spent $100 or more on, they'll think about it before doing it again, and likely do will anyone they tell the story too.
Most times when babysitters are hired, now or a generation ago, they're trusted to make reasonable decisions so the parents don't have to worry.
No one questioned the babysitter's competence. They're your children -- you're going to want to call and check to see how things are going.
The vast majority of the time consumed in that process is simply getting out from where you sit/stand and back, which is the same in the "unjailed" phone scenario.
Unless, of course, you were just going to go ahead and conduct that call right there in the venue anyway.
It all reminds me of DRM causing problems for legitimate, paying customers when the DRM should only be targeting those who go outside of the rules. That's where someone else's comment about treating everyone like adults and kicking people out who break the rules seems like the best bet, although they also admitted (and I agree) that this system just doesn't work as needed, either.
A lot of the time your mates aren't looking at the phone at the right time, or there are so many people that you don't get good reception. Looking up and just finding people works pretty well.
Surely not every time you go to the loo, if it's just the once it's hardly much inconvenience.
Yes. If you suffer from high levels of anxiety and don't trust your own decisions about who to trust, this is true. Many people, particularly Americans, are this way. It is not true for every parent, however.
Trust the babysitter to make wise choices. This is actully really tough as cell phones end up lowering the standard expected of babysitters, like the whole GPS/map thing.
I used to sit for my nieces and nephews before mobiles were in common usage. My sister would give me the number of the place they were going in case there was a problem.
Of course, this was useless if they had gone to somewhere where there may be more than a couple of dozen people?
So, in reality, people used to hire baby sitters and just trust them to be able to cope. It's not as if you could do much from the other end of a phone if there actually was an emergency?
The main difference is that you tend to plan less up front. When our children were younger, and we had babysitters, we'd point out where the obvious stuff was but if they needed something, they'd just text. You just don't bother with the 15 min tour that I'd have got when I was doing the babysitting.
As a tangential, vaguely amusing, anecdote. A few years ago, my eldest's phone was a bit dodgy and kept cutting out. He was going to meet up with my wife in town but was meeting friends first. The two of them, my wife and son, spent about 5 minutes trying to work out how they could contact each other.
I, genius that I am, proposed a radical solution. I suggested that they arrange to meet at an agreed time and place. It had been such a long time since this was necessary that it hadn't even occurred to my wife (for which I still won't let her forget). My son had never, in his 15 odd years at the time, needed to do this.
Yes, they did; before ubiquitous cellphones killed demand for them, basically every public place of any size (and many small ones, and even just public streets) had banks of payphones, and for many kinds of outings people would leave the phone number of the restaurant or other establishment that they were going to for emergency contact in the other direction.
The last generation that didn't have that “luxury” was whichever one was before landlines were ubiquitous.
checking how the babysitter is doing with the kids
Meanwhile, the deal the kids struck with the babysitter was a simple one - they could stay up as late as they wanted just so long as they pretended to be asleep if mummy and daddy come back early. The next morning the kids sleep in and everyone is happy.
So you have to let go. Trust the babysitter. Trust your seven year old daughter to try and stay up extra late by showing the babysitter daddy's secret porn collection, hidden behind the antiquarian book collection but all too easy to find for an adventurous child. Of course none of these things or the strange noises the parents make in bed get to be an issue, you just pay babysitter and make them feel welcome and all is good.
So Jack White is right.
Sorry but you talk about checking in on the babysitter as if it's some universal law. It's not you don't have to, and if you feel like you can't go out and enjoy a show without checking in then don't go to the show.
And yes I have kids.
It's perfectly fine if you don't want to take that chance but it's hardly an argument for why someone shouldn't do a show where they ban cellphones.
I say let's remove that from our experience.
My feeling is that this is a valid choice for artists to make, and if you disagree then avoid shows where this is the policy.
Or part of why. There are several motivators:
1) use of the recording that could cost paying attendance in the future (e.g. copyright issues)
2) damage control of statements that they regret later (e.g. Michael Richards' racist rant)
3) Protection of the interests of all the attendees positioned behind and around you. When anybody is recording, view from directly behind is outright obscured, and the experience of everybody behind you, where you are in their field of view at all, is impaired by this lit-up screen facing them. People who are recording are inflicting their choice on all others behind them.
I don't think it is socially accepted to use your phone in the cinema/opera/theatre either, so why should concerts be any different?
Why not give your full attention to the music.
Social media should have a health warning, we will look back at this era in the same way as we look at the pervasiveness of smoking in the 1950s.
edit- I really don't understand why this is downvote worthy...
I work freelance film production. I get calls for work at random hours and if I don't respond quickly that offer can expire. I also work on high-pressure, quick turnaround jobs a lot, and part of the deal as a freelancer is that I'm always available. As a result, I keep my phone with me.
I'm sorry that my earning a living is pathetic to you.