How hard is it to switch off your phone?

[Yoghurti]

After a second incident of a phone going off during the same theatre production in a week, you have to ask the question WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO SWITCH THEIR PHONE OFF?

It’s an hour to 90 minutes before the interval - can they honestly not handle switching it off for that length of time?

Absolute total morons.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/13/rosamund-pike-keeps-cool-phone-alarm-interrupts-performance-inter-alia

I actually don't know how to switch off my phone now. If I hold down what I thought was the power button it just turns on some AI thing. I genuinely don't know how to.

But I do know how to turn the volume and would always do so in the theatre!

I always set my phone to silent when I am in places like that.

Then I don't even look at it again until after the performance.

Same! Since ive had my most recent phone i can't turn mine off either.

There are lots of reasons people can’t turn their phones off. Absolutely wild that you have enough time in the day to get upset about something so minor

Well they shouldn't be at the theatre then or they could imagine they live in times not so long ago when people weren't contactable 24/7 and turn it off until the interval/end of performance.

Or they should have it on silent, in their pocket so they feel the vibration.

And if it rings, they're going to disturb everyone anyway when they leave to take the call if they can't wait until the end/interval.

I also don't know how to switch off my work iPhone. I only use it when I'm on call so I just leave it to go flat then I have to charge it up again a few weeks later.

I only turn my phone on when I need to use it. It's been turned off since Thursday.

People forget to silence it. When you've got a few hundred people, the chance that one will forget is pretty high.

I turn my phone to silent whenever necessary, will even do it on the train/bus as I would not talk in those situations so therefore I don't need to hear it ring.
It gets turned off every night before bed.
My OH can go days without even switching his on!😖

But this was during a live theatre performance. If you can silent your phone during a theatre or cinema performance for whatever reason, you shouldn't go. Don't care what the reason is.

I control my hearing aids through my phone (only way to properly do it) and I often have to adjust them in the first few minutes of a show since the volume level isn't consistent between shows/theatres (or how my ears are doing that day). I try to be as quick and discrete as I can (it doesn't make any noise but does light up my screen) but I always feel that I'm probably being judged. I do turn it off once I'm done.

It's not switch off but put it to silent. Yes I agree though OP.

In my experience it always pays to have an MC directly ask for phones to be turned off.

To walk onto stage before the curtain is raised and politely ask patrons to switch off phones always results in some people doing just that!! Some forget and some are ignorant of appropriate behaviour.

Try holding down the bottom part of top and second buttons simultaneously.

Oh wow! I had never thought about this! But of course it seems really obvious now you've said it and of course hearing aids have advanced so much they come with an app 😂

I will bear this in mind in future before I internally judge a phone illumated a few rows ahead during a performance

Ive had a couple of occasions recently where I 100% would have sworn phone was on silent in work and transpires it wasn't. I think where I'd used Google maps to navigate there it pushed it off silent mode in one of the settings so sometimes it is a genuine error.
I'd likely turn fully off tho in a theatre for fear of this happening.

The best ones are where it is lights down and all that every one goes quiet, all think the performance is about to start....

BIG LOUD PHONE RINGING
plus spoken reminder for everyone to turn devices off.

Always gets a few laughs and results in a few people doing it.

While we are at it, can we also be annoyed at those watches that give off two liitle beeps every hour, couplenof hours? Always right at the dramatic pause, moment of super super quiet pppp dynamic point in the music...

Same! Thank you @McSpootfor explaining that

@TobiasForgesContactLenseand @researchers3if you're on a Samsung you need to drag the menu down from the top (where you can adjust brightness, turn WiFi on/off) and the off button is there now - I'm the top right. Took me ages to figure out!

But you get multiple reminders in theatres and cinemas. It would be virtually impossible to genuinely not notice that.

It absolutely isn't something you'd think about unless/until you (or someone you are with) has to do it. Sometimes, you can use your smart watch, but I don't have one smart enough.

Let's be honest, most people on their phones are not adjusting hearing aids (and you shouldn't have to do this more than once - but sometimes your ears/hearing aids are just super annoying and need more tweaks) but they might be doing something like checking blood sugars/being alerted to a high/low. But, yes, sometimes people are just annoying.

Mine is the display/control for my continuous glucose meter (diabetes). If it goes off, it's alerting me that my blood sugar is low. It doesn't go off often, because I can usually tell I'm going low and have a bite to eat before it gets dangerous, but for safety it alarms when hits a specific preset number. If I quickly checked it to see what my reading was it would look like I was playing with my phone, because I have to unlock my phone and pop open an app to look at the number.

I ask AI to switch mine off, and it does 😆

I ended up with this too. Some stupid Gemini AI app installed itself.

I took mine to my local EE shop, the guy set it back to the old power off settings.

Almost everything I go to these days (cinema, theatre, local production etc) has a reminder to switch off phones or put them to silent - would also be good if they could say something about hearing aid adjustment, as @McSpoot mentioned above - like 'adjust if necessary, but remember to put it to silent'. Perhaps due to my age, I know a lot of people who control hearing aids through phones.
One situation where I don't ask people to turn off phones is some voluntary work I do - I teach carers (training in a a particular skill) - they absolutely have to take calls - but obviously it's not a theatre scenario.

They need to have someone at the beginning come out and tell everyone to turn their phones off, because if their phone goes off during the play they will be violently ejected and their phone will be smashed up. It will only take a few instances of this happening before people get the message. You can't rely on shame nowadays because many people do not have any sense of shame.