It really is undeniable that our society has become a more cellular friendly place, with texting lanes having been instituted on college campuses and charging kiosks cropping up around every corner. According to Forbes Magazine, five billion of the seven billion people in the world today use a cell phone on a daily basis. In a similar study, Daily Mail UK found that the average time a young person spends between separate cell phone uses is six minutes, meaning that, unless otherwise engaged, an audience member would be inclined to use their phone up to twenty-five times over the course of a typical theater production. But, although even the theater community cannot overlook how plugged in we are as a culture, Broadway is still giving this particular technology the cold shoulder.
Where Broadway has bowed out, other entertainment experiences have taken the bait. In the summer of 2014, AMC Theaters announced that they were toying around with the idea of introducing a “second screen experience” to its movie showings. Additional content relevant to the movie would become available to the viewer through apps on a ‘second screen’, meaning that theaters would now be encouraging rather than discouraging the use of electronics. In a trial run, however, the target 18 to 35 year-old age group found the additional content to be more of a distraction than an enhancement to the moving watching experience as a whole, contradicting the original need to embrace the habits of more keyboard-happy viewers.
The chip on theater’s shoulder is a result of the fact that audience reception is taken much more at face value. Bradley Cooper will never know (or probably care) that you texted at a showing of American Sniper. But, if he saw you texting during a performance of The Elephant Man, he might not have been as forgiving.
There is a time and a place to take care of your tech needs, but the window of opportunity ends when the lights start to dim. Put yourself in an actor’s shoes. If you had been preparing for months for a major in-class presentation, and, when the day came, the very teacher you spent all your time trying to impress checked his email while you were trying to say your piece, chances are you would be pretty upset too.
The best thing we can do for the theater community is be an audience worth performing for, and that audience is not one that violates an actor’s trust by ignoring simple rules. So, next time you step into a theater, power down and enjoy the moments ahead. The real world can wait a little while.
The HCND application is now open! For more information contact Rebecca Rogalski at rebeccarogalski@hercampus.com or Katrina Linden at katrinalinden@hercampus.com
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