How do you politely ask people not to use their phones at an event?

[Bluewhale01]

Hi
Long time lurker amd occasional poster!

I wanted to ask how we can prevent people from using their mobile phones at a big life event our parents.

We would like to put something on the invite that we would rather they were present in the moment, and would rather no phones were there. Dh is taking some photos along with a friend of ours (a professional photographer) There is a relative who will spend all their time texting family or phoning them at any event they attend,so they are our intended recipient of the message really.

What would you put on the invite? I want it to be quite clear and to the point without being rude ifyswim?

Hopefully someone will know how to phrase it.

Emergency calls such as when you know someone is ill, possibly terminally. Therefore, emergency calls as in you have to be on alert 24/7. Very fortunate if you've never needed to be in this emergency phone situation.

But the vast majority of people are not waiting for an update on a terminally il relative. Indeed on this thread posters main gripe appears to be not being able to take lots of photos of themselves. When did we become so shallow that taking selfies was a priority at other people’s significant milestone events?

In the extremely unlikely event you felt able to attend a celebration while waiting to be told a relative had died, presumably you would put your phone on vibrate and leave the event to take the call.

Just put your phones in your pockets for a couple of hours- it won’t kill you, you don’t need lots of photos of yourself, you may even find you enjoy yourself.

@EnterQueene
When did we become so shallow that taking selfies was a priority at other people’s significant milestone events?
Do you really not remember people carrying cameras to these events? The fac5 the camera is now in the phone doesn’t mean people have changed what they are doing.

BBC Sounds exists, no one needs to live like it's the 1970s. Or are fictional characters more important to you that real people?

It has to be live, @busyd4y , or how would I keep up with the threads on here?

I just can't imagine, if only there was a way not to open Mumsnet before you'd listened to the episode.

So not only would you be listening to the radio loudly you'd then sitting posting as well ?

And you think that's OK when you've been invited to a social event?

So not only would you be listening to the radio loudly you'd then sitting posting as well ? Of course. Life doesn't stop because DGP have been married for 60 years. I might miss something important.

Unless you have an exclusive with Hello magazine for the photos 🤣 no you can’t do this. People need to be able to use their phones to manage their healthcare or speak with carers or keep work ticking over so they can be at these things. Tell the knobhead who is rude about it to knock it off if they act like a twat on the day.

People can put their phones on vibrate to manage their healthcare and leave the event to speak with carers. Work can wait for when you are not a 60th wedding anniversary celebration. Live in the moment and celebrate milestones with loved ones, learn to ignore social media, selfies and work emails for a couple of hours.

I wonder if the. “Live in the moment for my celebration” will follow through? So when they’re out or with friends family going forward will they go along with, “no turn off your phone when we’re together.. we need to live in the moment!”

It would certainly tick me off if family and friends were always looking at their phones when we were out together - it is rude to the person you are with to be constantly staring at your phone. I don't do that and neither do my family or friends, we enjoy each others company and the event when we go out somewhere together. Don't you?

I do (though I’m not the poster you replied to). I do use it to take photos of we want one - like when all my cousins got together for the first time in years and years and we wanted a record of it. Or to wrote down dates in my diary. Or to show them photos of DD if they ask. Or to look something up if we are talking about it and can’t remember - like the name of a film or book or something. Or to book tickets, as I did when out with DD this week and we decided we wanted to got to the theatre to see something that we knew would be almost sold out as it got it done quickly.
Not everyone using a phone is doing something anti social.

Who says anyone’s constantly staring at their phone?

I assume the people who are outraged at the idea of being asked leave their phone in their pocket for a couple of hours. They must be pretty much welded to the device for it to be such an issue for them.

I and several other posters have explained things which people might use a phone for which don’t involve being ‘welded’ or addicted to the phone. Things people have always done, they just had a range of ways to do them whoch have all now been taken over by the phone.

Just speak to the person you're annoyed by about their phone use. Don't drag everyone else into it. If they're so oblivious to the irritation they cause chances are they'll ignore any messages with the invite anyway. So you'll end up with guests who are self conscious about perfectly acceptable phone use and probably still have the issue from the rude person. I think making others aware to run interference is also a good idea.