Why would you text at the theatre?

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Unless you're an idiot?
Rosamund Pike calls out audience member for texting during show

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0723zgdp0eo

Given how many posters there are here, there must be those who think it's reasonable behaviour to text or film during performances.

We watched RP in this play (Inter Alia) and it's an incredibly intense experience. I just can't understand the mentality of someone who would pull out their phone and text during a performance.

But I haven’t said people can’t leave a show if there’s an emergency? I disagree with the texting. If you read all my other posts I have said that if someone really is having an emergency surely they’ll leave the show and won’t just be sitting there texting?

As if a text to an affair partner is a justifiable excuse for using your phone during a theatre performance!

Tech = freedom

It was in fact The Lion King I was seeing. As well as this couple (who didn't seem to have any children with them), there were a few parents who were clearly bored and kept whispering to each other (or on phones). The kids were actually generally ok bar a bit of wriggling from the littler ones.

Not at the expense of everyone else. In such a situation, it’s using that tech-given freedom to dominate others. There’s a word for that.

'Emergencies' are not the issue.
People should not have to lock themselves in if there are long term or ongoing chronic situations.

Even if the one person texting whom Miss Pike had in mind was a person legitimately checking a life-saving app, judging by many responses here there will have been umpteen others checking the final squad selection for the World Cup or gawking at Instagram.
We’ve produced a generation of cultural Yahoos, whose children will be even more oblivious and solipsistic.

No, but they shouldn't be texting throughout theatre performances. As you already explained, you check your phone in a way that renders it totally undetectable by anyone else so it's fine. Carry on as you are.

If you are a carer you can never switch your phone off. A quick text can be the difference between being able to stay and watch the rest of the play or go home. If it's done completely silently and discreetly it is less disruptive to everyone than getting up, leaving the auditorium and then coming back in a minute or two later.

But you made the decision that it would be less distracting to race out of somewhere “legging it” and I said I’d find that more distracting than someone checking a text. Personally I presume lots of people are being rude and just scrolling, but it might be something else. In the same way, someone legging it out might have an emergency… or might want a cigarette. I don’t have all the info to hand.

I just find it interesting that you get to decide what’s appropriate or not - and when it’s appropriate. Maybe I think you should’ve been at the hospital but I’m aware I don’t have all the facts so I don’t judge.

Sadly hospitals don’t let you stay past visiting hours unless they feel death is imminent. Especially when things have been dragging out for months already.

It is little bit ironic also given her portrayal of a highly stressed modern woman, with conflicting pulls on her attention and time, not least from her 18 y/o son.
The message I got from the play was along the lines of judge not lest ye be judged.....
(Also, there was no interval)

Completely agree.
Unless you are a specialist surgeon who might be needed urgently to provide life saving treatment, it can wait.

Can anyone on this thread honestly say they’ve ever received life-or-death news that demanded their immediate and urgent attention by text?

Nope!

I did have a load of missed calls and some WhatsApps from my mum when I was at work once to say she was taking DS1 to A&E.

And another time DS2 was at camp. I went to the cinema with some friends and came out to messages saying he'd injured himself and possibly broken a bone. I felt awful that they hadn't been able to contact me for a couple of hours, but they were fine about it. So was DS.

It is really distracting when someone nearby at the theatre or the cinema checks their phone and it lights up.

Boredom. I went to see a very popular American comedy tv group several years ago when they toured the UK. They were awful, I cleared my entire work inbox (on very low light) over the couple of hours they were on.

Just leave then. Your low light is other people's distraction and ironically makes you a low life! Just leave the room - it's far more disrespectful to hang around dealing with your inbox than just leaving quietly. I can bet you there were plenty of people around you who thought you were being obnoxious only didn't tell you.

This is just the height of absolute rudeness.