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

Thank you. I didn't know that.

YANBU OP.

Selfish entitled idiots seem to be everywhere now with their mobiles. I was at the theatre recently, switched my phone off before the performance started & checked it at the interval. Despite reminders to the audience about mobiles we all had to suffer some idiots Ring doorbell notifications during the performance.

Cretins, absolute cretins. See also mobile phone users in the quiet coach on trains!

Be aware that theatre accessibility apps for hearing loss require the phone to be on and you sometimes need to discreetly adjust the sound fields during the performance. I usually tell the nearby usher that I'm using the app. I was at the Opera last night and didn't need it but for spoken word productions such as plays I'll use it and the mics on the stage connect with my hearing aids to help me hear the performance more clearly.

@McSpoot- sorry didn't spot your post. I've a similar app for general hearing aid use but do also check with the theatre if they are using an accessibility hearing app so that the onstage mics go to your aids. It's brilliant.

I set my phone to 'do not disturb' but am nervous that something will go off on it. I'd prefer to have the phone off completely tbh. I sit at the end of a row anyway and turn down the screen lighting so if I do need to adjust the sound mid performance, I can discreetly.

Disrupting a theatre performance is not minor. If you cannot be without your phone for an hour or so on a particular day, then don't go to the theatre that day.

Many theatre tickets cost over £50, and it's not like the cinema where you could go on another day or week in many cases.

Sennheiser Mobile connect accessibility app in case anyone knows someone it would be useful for. You then scan the accessibility QR code at the theatre

Thanks. I live in South-East Asia right now, so limited accessibility, but next time I'm at a show in Europe or North America, I've got it saved.

That's great @McSpoot- hopefully it's widely used. Didn't need it for the Opera last night as voice projection was really good and there were supertitles.

I love supertitles. I'm so used to using closed captioning that them is like a safety blanket (even if I can hear - my hearing is only moderately-severe, so I can hear if the volume is up)

For the diabetes is there a way to one off check blood sugar without the phone before and at the interval. Can it pulse silently? So maybe what happened before phones or what you do if you go to places with no signal or if your phone doesn’t work.

Should you have to - I probably should suck it up as a reasonable adjustment. I should feel more more tolerant of a very serious and occasionally fatal disease. but I’ve paid for very expensive tickets and sometimes disturbs at a very quiet period.

Ah, I've moderate mostly high frequency hearing loss. Avid subtitle user here too and in general much prefer the written to spoken word in terms of understanding something. Would love to be able to listen to radio easily when doing housework but I keep having to stop to concentrate 😂

You say or type, Gemini please turn off phone or shut down phone. It’s stupid. I couldn’t work it out either at first.

@CPandmeget over yourself

Like what?

People always seem to have excuses for their vile and anti-social behaviour. "It's not my fault". I am sick of it and I am not the only one.

Very fair comment- I should accept this use as completely reasonable adjustment. I wouldn’t know the person though or the reason for the buzz and on this anonymous forum I’m being honest.

I turn my phone to silent , and then switch it off too ! (Just in case it magically switches back on and at least then it’s on silent - I don’t trust it- 😁)

I mean, checking my sugar isn't something I'd go out of my way to do during a performance unless I felt unwell, but if I felt like I was going hypo while I was sitting there and I couldn't use my phone, I'd need to get out my backup testing kit from my bag, put a test strip into the machine, use a lancet to prick my finger, squeeze a drop of blood onto a test strip, and then read the screen on the blood glucose monitor, which is probably more fussy and annoying than whipping out my phone for 20 seconds to check the app.

The alarm needs to be loud enough to hear. No point literally passing out from a hypo because my phone is politely vibrating away (and I can't check it to see what the notification is that's vibrating - is it Librelink about my glucose levels, or my WhatsApp group chat going off?)

I doubt the people who the OP refers to were diabetics or had any medical condition monitored by their phone.

This was me a couple of months ago!

My phone is always on silent. It vibrates, but I never have sound on for notifications or calls or anything else aside from my alarm in the morning.

So I get to the theatre, I know my phone is on silent. Sit through the first half, interval, halfway through the second half my phone starts playing a song.

It was the alarm I'd set a pissing week ago to remind me to do something that night. I thought I'd set it as a one off, but no, I'd set it for every bloody Thursday at 9.15pm.

It was absolutely mortifying, I'm still cringing now recounting it.

I do think that most of the time when someone's phone goes off, they've genuinely forgotten to set it to silent before the play or film started. Yes, some people are dickheads who think the rules down apply to them, but for most people, it's a genuine mistake.

As I said it’s a me problem and I know it’s huge progress for diabetics

I'm so so sick of it. I go to the theatre regularly, mostly to see musicals but plays as well.
Was sitting in the 5th row of the stalls at Hamilton in Glasgow, constant chat going on around. A young man next to me was watching the Disney recording on his phone during the show! I told him to turn it off.
Also a woman sitting next to my DD was messaging on her phone whilst Aaron Burr speaking, the actor was actually glaring at her, she kept doing it!
Just stay at home and let the rest of us enjoy the shows.

It’s 30 seconds of a 90 minute show. It is absolutely minor. I am a regular theatre goer and I can’t remember the last time this happened. Whenever I see recordings of it happening online, it seems the main disruption comes from the tutting and chatter from the rest of the audience, rather than the phone itself. Then some pompous arse on stage will do some diatribe about phones in theatres, when all that’s happened is, of the hundreds of people who have turned off their phone, there will be one person who made a silly mistake, thought they had turned it off, forgot it was in their bag etc etc. That turns a minor event into a major issue.

Not minor at all. An example of how what one person does can fuck things for others and they do not give a damn. Despite what Thatcher said, there IS such a thing as society, we are all joined together

DH uses his phone to monitor his blood sugars. It's essential for him.