If You Use Your Phone During Movies You’re A Bad Person And I Hate You
The next iPhone update could include a "theatre" mode. Here's why that's a terrible idea.
Rumor has it that the next iOS update will include a feature that lets users put their iPhone and or iPhone on “theatre” mode. Information is scarce, but presumably such a setting would dim the screen and mute the volume so as to make it appropriate for use while at the cinema.
This is a terrible fucking idea.
the iPhone theatre mode..also known as your pocket
— Ads (@_senselxss) January 5, 2017
iPhone has "theatre mode" so u can text at the movies. It also has "no tip mode," "fart in a crowded elevator mode" and other rude modes.
— Dave Landau (@LandauDave) January 6, 2017
If the iPhone "Theater Mode" turns on automatically when you enter the cinema & tases you if you touch it during the film, I'm all for it
— Stuart Richter (@DiscoStuMadrid) January 5, 2017
At the risk of hyperbole, people who use their phones at the movies are a blight on civilised society. Whether you’re taking a call, sending a text or swiping your way through tinder in the vain hope of finding someone willing to tolerate your decidedly sub-par personality, whipping your mobile out during a film screening is basically like flashing people with a glowing blue sign that reads “I’m a giant prick who thinks they’re more important than anybody else.”
The patrons behind you paid to see the movie, not your crappy Instagram feed.
People who indulge in this kind of behaviour are especially objectionable not just because they know what they’re doing is rude, but because they know that they’re almost certainly going to get away with it. Like manspreading or being that weirdo who uses the urinal right next to someone even when there are other ones available, there’s an invisible social contract that tells you you’re not supposed to use your phone at the movies. But if you do, odds are that you won’t get called out, because nobody wants to be “that guy” or risk getting in a fight with a total stranger.
After all, if you’re so sociopathically selfish as to tweet through the middle of La La Land, who knows what other kinds of unhinged shit you’re capable of.
Some theatre chains have attempted to bend this golden rule, allowing, or even encouraging, phone use during film sessions. Village Cinemas just launched an app that lets customers in VPremium cinemas order food straight to their seats. For the time being, customers are only able to access the app during the commercials, before the movie has actually begun. But once the first domino falls, isn’t only a matter of time before the whole thing comes crashing down?
American movie chain AMC even floated the idea of operating a certain number of sessions each day where mobile phone use was permitted – you know, for millennials? They abandoned the plan after it was met by a backlash, although believe it or not I’m actually in favour of such a proposal. But only if we lock the doors from the outside and recreate the final act of Inglorious Bastards on their obnoxious asses.
As for Apple’s theatre mode, think of it this way: it’s not cool to go up to someone on the street wearing headphones and scream directly in their face. It’s also not cool to go up to that same person and just talk very, very loudly. One is better than the other, I guess, but in both cases you still suck.