Tablets in restaurants with the sound up

[Reallyareyoukiddingme]

Help me understand please….
How selfish and lazy must you be to think it’s ok to come into a nice restaurant, sit and park your child in front of a tablet then put the sound up to max so everyone has to sit through the horror of Vampirina/Tinkerbell/some other Disney plus horror.
I am now kicking myself I didn’t say anything but was with my children (who were all happy with the restaurant provided colouring and actually talking to us) and didn’t want a fight.
I just can’t imagine how anyone can justify that kind of behaviour though? iPads I get, if you really need to use them. But seriously…..headphones?!

Tablets generally - I’d rather see kids talking and interacting with people but understand what I’m seeing is a snapshot and they might have been busy all day etc and need some downtime or have SEN or parents need to have a break….I can imagine lots of reasons why that might be necessary.
But FFS people get kids headphones!!!

tablets in restaurants - other people’s parenting not impacting me.
noisy tablets in restaurants - other people’s parenting definitely impacting me!
also as a couple of PPs have pointed out, the odds of people that selfish being receptive to being asked politely to turn off the sound to a device aren’t huge…

It's not just kids, I was on a flight last month and the woman next to me watched a whole movie with no headphones! 😩

I hope you used elbows and accidentally spilled a drink on her.

We have had this a lot recently it's getting worse. The noise is awful. Just mindless shit they are watching. What's the point in taking them out if they just do this. What about talking ? Kids don't stand a chance these days. Adults do it with their phones too. Bloody selfish

Even when screens are silent it bothers me when other diners around me are on them - whether adults on phones or children on tablets. Especially couples silently scrolling in parallel across the table from each other.

It makes me feel depressed.

It kills the atmosphere. It makes me feel like I’m in a dystopian novel.

It's not just kids or in restaurants but once I accompanied a friend to an appointment at the breast clinic. While waiting for her a woman nearby had the volume up on her phone. I'm guessing she was watching those reels on FB. Very annoying. I was on my phone as well but no sound.

I agree, she doesn't sound smug.

If I'm on my own in a coffee shop or cafe having just a coffee or a meal I do browse a bit on my phone. Surely no harm in that. I used to read a paper but the phone takes up a lot less room and is handier.

iPads for sure. Sound. Absolutely not. My friend does this and I find it so embarrassing.

Frequently happens on the tube. Can't understand how this has become a thing. Adults unaware that no one else wants to hear the crap they are staring at? Drives me mad.

I was on a coach the other day with other families.
The kid in front with her parent was watching Frozen quite loud on her tablet! Sound up, no headphones! I could really hear it and I've got bad hearing!!
Was actually really shocked by the sheer volume and audacity of that one

My niece has severe autism (if that is correct terminology). She's 14 and has an iPad she watches movies on while out at restaurants. She will not tolerate ear or head phones. But I can barely hear it sitting at the same table with her, and it's inexcusable for others to have it so loud as to interfere with conversation.
Next time have a word with the waitstaff.

Yanbu, headphones or on mute, no exceptions either.

Restaurant manager here.

If somebody complained to me about this I would move the table that complained further away. Whilst yes I agree it's shitty parenting, but ultimately if they are not playing anything offensive or being overly hyperactive there isn't really much you can do about it. Unfortunately unless multiple people complain, moving the customers would be the easiest solution.

Ditto.

There is always some noise even if the volume is very low, and when it's indistinct it can be even more annoying.

I have asked the cabin crew before to deal with no headphones on planes and they sad it wasn’t their job. Given that cabin crew have powers to deal with passengers I was very annoyed. Would be easy to make clear on booking and take off that headphones are compulsory and spare ones can be bought onboard.
it has honestly put me off holidays as it happens on the plane in restaurants and by the pool.

Why does rhat make her a dick? Because she parents her children?

I don’t understand this? Why not just ask the offending family to turn their device off or use headphones? What if more than one table is doing this? Where are you going to move the conplaining family to? And why should they have to move?

@MrsClatterbuck my local breast clinic seems to be in an internet black spot. For which I am now grateful.

We had to put up with this in a hospital clinic recently. The child came with the patients ‘driver’.

Tablets should be headphones or silent but no need for the smugness.

@Stopsnowing because ultimately the chances are the family know their iPad is loud and if they wanted to turn it down or use headphones they would. If I thought it was a genuine mistake and this family was very polite and maybe unaware, then potentially. But reality is parents aren't idiots and know when something is disruptive, ahere's a chance the child has SEN or a reason for them doing this that will come back round and bite you when you're reported for ableism.

I would be deeply unimpressed with this if I were eating in your restaurant. It is actually your job to deal with this sort of shit in an appropriate manner and if you didn't do that I would leave a bad review and not eat there again.

I work in hospitality and face this kind of situation more and more and I think you've got to be realistic about people like this and how they will react to being asked to modify their behaviour by service staff (including management) in a shared space and to consider other people.

Most interactions like this unfortunately don't have a positive response and the staff are at best ignored and at worst the disruptive guests go on to either get deliberately worse or create a scene with the staff, and make the whole situation 10 times worse.

As staff (whatever level) you can deal with this in the most tactful and appropriate way possible - that doesn't mean that the disruptive guests are going to respect what's being asked and react appropriately in return and quite often it means the opposite.

It is an unfortunate side effect of 'The customer is always right' that some people believe they can behave however they want in spaces that are shared with no consideration towards others, and get bent out of shape when that lack of consideration is pointed out and they are asked to behave in a more considerate way, by service staff that command very little respect in general anyway. And they are not responsible for other people's poor behaviour.