How Your Mobile Phone is Ruining the Concert Experience for You

We've all seen it:  people who spend good money on concert tickets and then spend the entire show looking at the stage through the screen of their cell phone.  

At a Green Day show a number of years ago, Billie Joe Armstrong ranted "Put your f**king phones down! Be here!  Be in the moment!  Get into what's going on!  Don't live your life on that f**king little screen!"  I gave him a big cheer.

Far too many people are missing out on the communal experience that is The Concert because they're too busy capturing something for posterity.  Why bother?  Let someone else put it up on YouTube.  Get into the gig!

The Village Voice has a great column on the six ways the cell phone is ruining your concert experience. Read it here.

Comments

[juanito69508 (John)]

For the person recording the event, I agree, It does definitely takes something away from the experience. It's almost like you're there to work. However for countless people not having the cash to go to a concert it gives them the opportunity to see something that they wouldn't have had the opportunity to see. With the exorbitant price of tickets nowadays, I think that if you want to bring your camera in you should have the complete right to do so. There are so many great moments that happen, such as fans getting pulled on stage to do a song with their idol. Impromptu moments that I as a fan, not being at the concert, would never have seen, if not for these people recording the event

[SoaG]

It's not just concerts. Cell phones are the most inherently anti-social devices ever invented.

People think they have them to be more connected, but the truth is they prevent you from ever really connecting with anyone you're with, or anything you're doing.

Don't get me wrong, they're great for business use, and I've spent most of my career as a tech working with various forms of wireless telecommunications. For personal use though? I challenge anyone to leave their phone in a drawer for a week, or even just a busy social weekend. Be in each moment, activity and interaction, and observe the difference in those still carrying their crackberry or IPad.