Is it acceptable to use a smart phone in a public talk?

September 10, 2014 6:52 AM

I went to a talk by a well-known author yesterday in an auditorium. The lights were somewhat dimmed, but definitely not dark. The person in front of me spent about half of the talk live-tweeting bits from the talk. The lights were sufficiently dim that the (5-6") cell phone of the person in front of me was quite distracting to me, since it shined directly at me (the user actually turned the phone away from them a bit, which I wonder was due to the brightness of the screen.). However, I am somewhat more sensitive to bright light than other people. Has smart phone usage reached sufficient social acceptance to allow usage in a non-darkened auditorium?

I'm perfectly comfortable with asking people to change their behavior in public. In this particular case, though, I wasn't sure how far in/out of socially accepted behavior the person in question was. For instance, I'd consider it quite appropriate to use a laptop at an academic talk in a fully lit auditorium. I'd consider it quite inappropriate to use any device in any darkened venue.

posted by saeculorum to Technology (33 answers total)

I'd consider it very impolite in a dimmed or darkened venue.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 6:55 AM on September 10, 2014

In a non-darkened auditorium as you describe, I think it is entirely the norm for people to be on their smart phones (typing/texting, not talking, of course).

In a darkened auditorium, it should be banned, but many people were raised in barns and do it anyway.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 6:57 AM on September 10, 2014 [16 favorites]

This is sort of like the "Is it ok to wear a hat indoors?" question in that there's really no correct answer. People who do it will say it's acceptable, people who are sensitive to such things and get annoyed by it will say it's unacceptable.

Personally I think such things should be punishable by, maybe not death, but at least a paddlin'* but I'm quite sensitive to light. People texting in movie theaters, even if they're several seats away, annoy the crap out of me. I admit I am extra sensitive to distractions of any type.

* No, of course I don't really condone physical punishment for such an offense.
posted by bondcliff at 6:59 AM on September 10, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm an academic, so I go to talks all the time.

Regardless of light condition, author importance or fame, subject matter, size of audience, or anything else people will inevitably use to excuse it: it is rude to use a phone during a talk.

For me, and in my culture, this expands to any technology, including laptops, no matter how quiet the keyboard.

It is inherently disrespectful to the speaker, and to the rest of the audience. You are there for a limited time for a specific event: be there.
posted by Dashy at 7:00 AM on September 10, 2014 [17 favorites]

I doubt that it would have bothered me. I don't even notice anymore when people use mobile devices, with the notable exception of when people engage in loud conversations near me in some public place (one of my co-workers regularly does this in the staff break room, and I always want to take her phone and smash it against a cinderblock wall).
posted by alex1965 at 7:04 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

In my little world of techie people, this is incredibly common. Often many members of the audience are tweeting to each other and having a lively real time conversation about the material. But social rules vary greatly between different groups.
posted by miyabo at 7:05 AM on September 10, 2014 [6 favorites]

It's definitely not rude to ask someone politely to turn the brightness on their phone down a bit if you find it distracting. I've done that before.
posted by pipeski at 7:06 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

It is very rude (using the annoying technology, not asking people to stop!), and people do it ALL THE TIME. In particular, famous and well-regarded international speakers who are on later will be busy finishing off their own slides, and half the audience will be tweeting everything they think is interesting about the talk, or discussing it in chat with their colleagues (who may or may not be present in the auditorium themselves).

Good luck stopping them.
posted by emilyw at 7:07 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think this ship has sailed, sorry. Live-tweeting events is extremely common now and phones/tablets are becoming part of the background. Pretty soon you'll be the rude one (or at least an old curmudgeon) if you say something.
posted by desjardins at 7:07 AM on September 10, 2014 [13 favorites]

Has smart phone usage reached sufficient social acceptance to allow usage in a non-darkened auditorium?

Yes. Now that phones can be easily silenced and dimmed, it falls under most people's definition of, "None of your business." If the person beside you is playing audible smartphone games, or clicking a pen, or eating smelly food, then you have a valid complaint. If you are distracted by the person silently texting, or twiddling her thumbs, or daydreaming of lions, then you have a distraction issue.
posted by cribcage at 7:08 AM on September 10, 2014 [15 favorites]

It's one of those things that I wouldn't do (and personally every time I see someone live-tweeting an event like this, I wonder WTF the point of them even going was, if they're not going to pay attention to the speaker and spend the whole time on twitter), but I wouldn't be annoyed enough by someone else doing it to actually take action.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I'm much more viscerally irritated by this on twitter than I am in the room where the talk is going on. Because seriously does anybody ACTUALLY read those boring conference livetweets? There'll be a transcript and/or video later. It is highly unlikely that the talk being given is such a huge deal that people who aren't even there will be hanging on every word in real time.
posted by Sara C. at 7:16 AM on September 10, 2014

I don't know if "is this rude?" matters for stuff like this because like it or not it's becoming ever more common. There's a transition stage between definitely rude and culturally accepted and that's where this is. Unless speakers decide they've had enough and request all electronic devices be put away, I think stopping the cultural tide isn't realistic.
posted by Aranquis at 7:29 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dim - ok
Dark - NOT OK

Also ok - tapping on his/her shoulder and politely & non-judgily asking them to shuffle over, or swap seats so the light won't bug you etc.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:31 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I have been at conferences where they explicitly asked us to tweet about talks as they were happening, so, sometimes at least it's explicitly codified as polite and desireable (and this included in a dimmed room).
posted by WidgetAlley at 7:35 AM on September 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

It is rude, certainly, but it's one of those things that I find even more frustrating trying to mitigate as time goes on. I'm going to sound like a grandpa here, but the main issue, I think, is that we are having a harder time learning to enjoy one thing without multitasking various forms of media. Add to this the fact that phones and laptops are actually encouraged as a way of interacting with a particular event, either to take notes or to look up additional research on the topic at hand, then it creates a smoke screen where it's becoming increasingly more difficult to call it out or even create spaces in which people simply don't do that. Technology is becoming an extension of our brains for many people. As much as I hate it, this might be the price we eventually pay for ubiquity of information via technology.

That being said, you are still correct to think it's rude, although there are an awful lot of people working hard to change the rules. You are also in the right to ask people to turn down or off their screen, although I expect more push-back these days whenever I do that, which is pretty crappy, too.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:36 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would be absolutely thrilled as a speaker to know that someone found my presentation so engaging, relevant, and important that it was worthy of being live-tweeted. Live-tweeting arguably requires a higher level of engagement with the material than just taking it all in, because you have to reflect on it, digest the subject matter, then present it in an engaging way to a larger audience that is not present.

I've organized speaker events where we specifically tapped folks who would be in the audience to do our official live tweeting as a way to raise the profile of our event and the speakers we had invited. The speakers get more exposure than they otherwise would have and the subject matter reaches a broader audience.

Tell me that doesn't serve a core purpose of intellectual, academic events.

All that said, dim the screen, please.
posted by Schielisque at 7:39 AM on September 10, 2014 [13 favorites]

I'd consider it okay with a dimmed screen - not if the person had the screen on full glare.
posted by Stacey at 7:56 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Most of the talks I attend these days are tech-related but also include pop culture or social justice. The Twitter backchannel is now the norm, and many conferences will even offer up a hashtag to use so you can find other people to discuss the talk with while the talk is happening.

It never occurred to me how rude this is by standards of only a few years ago. It's de rigueur in my world.

I think it's perfectly acceptable to ask them if they could dim the phone or hold it lower.
posted by AaRdVarK at 8:13 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think it's most polite for someone tweeting, whether they're on a phone or a laptop, to sit in the back row. That's pretty common. But it's also common for people to use phones and laptops anywhere at conferences now, for better or worse.
posted by three_red_balloons at 8:13 AM on September 10, 2014

At The Chicago Council of Global Affairs talks they ask people to tweet questions for the Q and A portion, so at least in some cases it's expected. For the record the room was dimmed, not darkened. It is still hard for me to concentrate when someone in my immediate vicinity is using electronics.
posted by readery at 8:19 AM on September 10, 2014

Twitter still isn't an excuse.

Even if it's encouraged by the conference or organizers -- the rudeness is just on them. I'd hate to be a speaker in that situation. What next -- "Excuse me, can you pause while I catch up with my tweeting?"

The same twitscussion or profile-raising or audience broadening or backchanneling can happen an hour later -- even as soon as the talk ends. Doing it "live!!!" during the talk doesn't change or make a difference to the talk itself. You can tweet later, for as long as you like, but the talk is a limited-time event.

Don't drink the twit-aid.
posted by Dashy at 8:31 AM on September 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Personally I consider it rude in all cases: pay attention to the speaker, dammit, not your Twitter account! But as someone said upstream, that ship has (unfortunately) sailed; all too many people can't seem to exist without tweeting/texting/etc. all the time.

At this point, I'd say something to them 1) if the phone was distracting to me, like you were distracted by it shining directly towards you; 2) if the phone was emitting any sorts of noises --- ringtones, clicks, game noises, whatever; 3) if the room's lights were dimmed even a little bit; or 4) especially if the room was fully darkened.

But then, I'm a cranky old bat who doesn't care if people call me rude for asking them to stop talking in movie theaters, turn off cellphones, etc.
posted by easily confused at 8:32 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Contrary to Dashy's experience, in my area of academia live-tweeting a conference event is completely expected and part of expanding the scholarly conversation to those who can't be there in person. Our conference sessions are usually well-lit, though, and I agree that that aspect of the person's behavior is definitely a little rude.
posted by MsMolly at 8:34 AM on September 10, 2014 [5 favorites]

The last conference I went to, the organizers were live-tweeting and holding up their phones to take pictures from the front row, and there was a hashtag slide showing in between talks. Yesterday I was at a meeting with a bunch of cool unpublished out-there stuff that I absolutely would not have live-tweeted, but about half the room had little laptops they were taking notes on, closing them when not in use. I was one of two people using paper. One person cross-referenced something during a talk on their computer and shared it at the end.

So in my local academic culture, it's considered a source of enrichment to the conversation.

I do think it's totally fine to move spots or ask someone to dim their phone, and I personally would avoid it in semidarkness.
posted by tchemgrrl at 8:35 AM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

At a minimum, this guy should've dimmed his phone's screen to the darkest setting. If it was as bright as you say, then I doubt his did. Or maybe his phone sucks, but my screen can get pretty dark.

Journalists or bloggers who will be livetweeting and writing during a talk should be off to the side in a media section or something, IMO. But I don't think livetweeting something that a reporter might write about after the fact is bad. It's just a more immediate way of covering an event. If it's not something covered by the press, then yes, I think it's rude.
posted by AppleTurnover at 8:59 AM on September 10, 2014

This is absolutely socially acceptable in 2014. It would have been rude of you to complain.
posted by ewiar at 9:07 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would be absolutely thrilled as a speaker to know that someone found my presentation so engaging, relevant, and important that it was worthy of being live-tweeted. Live-tweeting arguably requires a higher level of engagement with the material than just taking it all in, because you have to reflect on it, digest the subject matter, then present it in an engaging way to a larger audience that is not present.

This, times a million. I love it when I get live-tweeted during a talk. You have to be paying attention to live tweet, so it gives me feedback that I'm engaging at least some of the audience.

And I also love to read conference tweets, especially from conferences that are not in, but are adjacent to my discipline. I find a lot of interesting new research that way. And frankly, at most academic conferences I go to there is no video or transcript, often not even for keynotes, so conference hashtags have opened up a great space for archiving the conversation.

That said, I travel in very techy corners of academia, and I know that in other disciples YM definitely varies.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 9:54 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I live tweet from conference all the time. I also live tweet from seminars that my work hosts. I try to sit in a non-disruptive place (to the side or the back), but I do it. Why? Engagement and promotion. For the seminars, it's helped extend the conversation beyond the room to our friends and alumni who aren't on campus. It's a good marketing and networking tool and it's becoming standard.

Some other academic/professional circle will most definitely differ, but in the last 6 or 7 years in the circle I travel in it's now expected that somebody is going to live tweet.
posted by kendrak at 9:59 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have to admit that I find most public events (lectures, seminars, football games, awards ceremonies, graduations, etc.) to be insanely boring. If at all possible, I do use my phone, iPad, or laptop. (Obviously, within reason -- I don't whip 'em out at a funeral.)
posted by alex1965 at 10:03 AM on September 10, 2014

Response by poster: A few items of clarification:

• This was not an academic talk, although the crowd was more science-y/tech-y than the general population.
• There was no suggestion of livetweeting by the organizers so far as I could tell.
• The person in question is not a journalist (although does have ~1K followers on Twitter).

posted by saeculorum at 10:11 AM on September 10, 2014

My experiences in nightclubs and music venues have revealed clearly and consistently that people almost never think about who or what is behind them.
posted by germdisco at 12:39 PM on September 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

The lights were sufficiently dim that the (5-6") cell phone of the person in front of me was quite distracting to me, since it shined directly at me

It's not entirely analogous, but considering that many movie theaters now have announcements specifically pointing out that the light from your phone may be distracting to others, I'd find it as much if not more egregious to do this at a live event (particularly where there is no explicit encouragement to engage simultaneously via social media).
posted by psoas at 1:03 PM on September 10, 2014

I've been to a talk in a darkened room where those who were planning to tweet (or worse, use laptops) were asked to sit in the back few rows, to prevent the light distracting others.
posted by quercus23 at 6:36 PM on September 10, 2014