to ask if you’re a parent with kids on loud devices in public what’s your reasoning?

[AMuser]

…just can not quite fathom it?

This afternoon in a beautiful 5 star hotel. A quiet lounge room with various family groups and so on. Suddenly aware of the awful referred noise of a kid watching his phone on full volume. He was aged about 8 or 9 and sitting with his parents - quite some way away from me (to show how loud it was).

Waited awhile to see if it would stop. It didn’t. So went over asked politely could they please put the child’s phone on silent. Seemingly decent woman immediately goes on the attack “why should he”. Well you’re in a public place and it’s rude. “Who says” was her response. I mean, if you don’t realise that what hope is there.

I’ve got 4 older kids who did have iPads etc at a certain point. But always with headphones or on silent. Newsflash they will still stare at it regardless

Rather lovely young Dad seated much closer to them came over and thanked me. Said he’d wanted to say something as it was so grating but his wife had asked him not to.

So if you do this - what is your reasoning? Why is this ok?

YABU - my child (or indeed my own) need to listen to tik tok / you tube / Cocomelon etc trumps anyone else in a public place that might not want to hear our devices.

YANBU - and we must rise up in the most unBritish fashion to challenge this insanity & establish order once more and let people know they need to get headphones or go home to blast their phones in public

Seems to be 50/50 mix where I live (SE London suburbs).

There is a huge difference between chatting to kids and performance parenting

After a horrendous noisy lengthy train journey the other week I’ve bought myself some noise cancelling headphones.

And Dd asked the mother of the kids in the quiet coach to get the kids to stop screaming and for the mother to stop having a full volume conversation as it’s the quiet coach! I’d decamped to the other end of the carriage where it wasn’t much better as 4 youths were watching noisy TikTok videos,

but my new headphones are bliss. I can also sit in the living room and read a book in silence now with them on. Dh can watch whatever shit he wants on the history channel and we are both happy 😁

Yes, sorry, I meant to include say 'devices that I encounter'- I haven't conducted a study and I'm not claiming that that percentage is universal, just my experience!

The difference according to most MNers appears to be whether or not you have a posh voice.

Aha, I know the answer to this one! I was on a train last week and a couple had their child’s iPad on fairly loudly. She thought it was too loud but he wasn’t having any of it.

His take was that since it wasn’t a quiet carriage you could do what you liked. I was quite tempted to turn my phone on full blast to show where that kind of thinking got you. But I didn’t and put my headphones in instead.

I guess the answer may be that some people never get societal norms explained to them - so they don’t know/care that other people find it annoying.

I raise you a plane journey with competing episodes of peppa pig from three different tablets.

Fortunately they had run out of seats in the Family section so despite travelling with a 4&6yp we were in the adult section... (ironically because families with teens had pushed to the front of the queue)

I don’t see the issue with it being on quietly, no different to hearing others around you have conversations but not being able to hear them properly

The tinny, piercing noise from a phone or tablet, no matter how quiet, is completely different to a hubbub of human voices. The brain processes the noises in different ways.

Can I “dictate” if they’ve got their phone on in the theatre / cinema or is that not my right in your world either? Because I actually think that’s well within my rights to dictate.

There is literally no reason on earth why that child / adult can’t use headphones or subtitles and not bother other people in any situation. And if you can think of a situation then it’s going to be vanishingly small numbers of people it would relate to.

Why should the person with the phone take priority over everyone else when it’s quite possible to maintain what they are doing without pussing off everyone around them? Then everyone is happy.

I love how your interpretation of dictate means it’s fine to be anti social if I want.

Did everyone clap and cheer?

If it was on loud, the staff should have asked them to turn it down. Having it on quietly wouldn’t bother me at all.

I usually find adults are the worst offenders when it comes to using loud devices in public places.

Can I “dictate” if they’ve got their phone on in the theatre / cinema or is that not my right in your world either? Because I actually think that’s well within my rights to dictate.

That’s different to a place where people chat. I don’t care if someone is watching something at a reasonable volume on their phone on a train, bus, cafe etc, people are chatting anyway.

Sorry to clarify - they didn’t turn it down immediately no.

But after I spoke to her and the other Dad spoke to me - the staff became aware and spoke to them. And it was either turned off or certainly low enough I could no longer hear it from where I was sitting.

I didn’t ask the staff because they were young women, working hard in Boxing Day and I felt I was more than capable of doing that.

On an aeroplane I would (and have on a number of occasions) ask the flight attendant to do it. I feel that’s more within their jurisdiction than a teenage waitress. BA I am glad to note make an announcement about devices on silent at the start of flights now.

When I rule the world it will be silent or headphones only. “Lower volume” is just too subjective for me. Let’s all fight the good fight people!!!

I think there is a basic disconnect about how people behave in public spaces. Some think it means you can do what you want - because it’s public. If anyone doesn’t like it, it’s they who needs to move away or stay at home. The others think you need to be respectful of everyone else- because it’s a public space. If anyone doesn’t like that, they should move away or stay at home. Never the twain shall meet.

I asked some parents on a bus who plonked an iPad with Paw Patrol on full volume in front of their quiet and peaceful baby in its buggy to turn it down and they looked appalled at my nerve. Seriously, how dare I tell them what to do?!

On holiday recently, two families turned up at the pool with speakers to blast their own music above the piped easy listening background music there. One was playing shite 80s poodle rock and ignored all the no smoking signs too.

I simply don't understand how some people are so obtuse.

Watching something quietly is ok, no different to people talking to each other. I think you were unreasonable to expect it to be on silent unless that was the rules of the hotel.

It's a completely different type of noise to general conversation around. It is much more intrusive.

No one should be playing any devices in public without headphones on. It’s rude and general bad manners.

Harsh. I’ve never seen a Wolf placate their cubs with annoying synthetic noise from a phone in a public place. Wolves have far more manners than these ungodly humans…

I think this is the case. And also, relatedly, some people think 'it doesn't cause any harm if just I do it' and other people think you shouldn't do it if it would be a problem if everyone did it (as would clearly be the case if we all started trying to play our own music on the bus).

This thread also shows that some people find all noises of the same volume equally annoying/intrusive and some (including me) don't - I'd much rather be able to hear loud in-person chatting than quiet electronic noise. Though I also think part of the problem is that some noises you get used to and so are unaware how jarring they are to people who aren't used to it. I used to go to the houses of friends with children and marvel that they could chat away with kids TV in the background while I found it insanely annoying and distracting. I can now happily sit and read a book while my kids watch Cocomelon - but I bet I won't be able to in five years' time.

It's not fucking ok. Get that into your head and you'll be a decent citizen 👌

If some of the responses here are anything to go by it would appear not and very much of the 21st century school of rights but no responsibilities.

No, it is isn’t. You need to wear headphones.

Jesus 😁 bit aggressive. Tis the season, etc