“You know who you are”, declared Rosamund Pike to an audience member at the end of her performance of Inter Alia in London’s West End last week.
The offending person – who presumably does know who they are – had been spotted from the stage by Pike texting on their mobile phone at one of the play’s most emotional moments, a distraction for the performers that Pike said she “found hard”. Pike, as has been widely reported, took time at the end of the performance to come back on stage and remind her audience about good etiquette in the theater.
On one level, this is not a story of any great relevance: an actress is mildly offended at the behavior of her audience. Yet on another level, it is a small representation of a global phenomenon which increasingly is both at odds with, and yet also a definitional element of, our humanity.
The Photo-Taking Impairment Effect
In recent years, scientists have identified a new condition: the photo-taking impairment effect. That effect describes a phenomenon whereby the human memory is less able to recall the details of important moments when the person being studied has taken out their phone to photograph them. For example, people who take out their phones to film at concerts or music venues are observably less able to remember what songs were played than people who had no phone on their person. The very act of using a phone – even if it is simply to record a moment of peak enjoyment – actually impairs our memory of that event.
Taking too many pictures could actually harm the brain’s ability to retain memories, says Elizabeth Loftus, a psychological science professor at the University of California, Irvine, who was speaking to NPR last year. She claims that a person might get the photo but, in the process, lose the memory.
It works in one of two ways, Loftus explains: the photographer either offloads the responsibility of remembering moments when they take a photo or becomes so distracted by the process of taking a photo that they miss the moment altogether.
And yet that phenomenon of people using their phones is often at its highest at the most memorable events of their lives. Climb the Eiffel Tower in spring and a person will observe tourists filming themselves and taking photos of themselves in front of the views of Paris, rather than taking the views in; stand outside Buckingham Palace or the White House and you will see the same thing. It is as if recording the fact that one was there – usually for public consumption on a social media platform – has vastly heightened significance compared to the basic act of enjoying the moment.
The same phenomenon is true in private life, with people who spend their time photographing weddings or family occasions often less able to remember the events than those who simply experience them.
We do not know, of course, that the phone-user identified by Rosamund Pike was filming or taking pictures. In the actress’s interpretation, the person was doing something arguably worse: taking themselves out of the moment entirely by texting or communicating with somebody outside the theater.
Phone-Free Public Spaces?
Which brings us to the question: is there a case for phone-free public spaces? Venues where the mobile phone and all of its works are banished?
The obvious answer which will be advanced by many is that the phone has become such an essential tool of life that it is actually dangerous to be without it. What occurs, for example, if a child gets sick while a parent is at a theater watching Rosamund Pike? What happens if your editor suddenly needs to contact you to verify an urgent fact? Why, the world might stop turning on its axis if we cannot be contacted immediately, urgently and at all times.
This is an exaggeration, but only a mild one. In reality, it is an argument that does not really stand up: the chances of an emergency so urgent that nothing but an immediately answered WhatsApp call will suffice are remote. Besides, a thousand generations of humans managed these situations perfectly well without phones.
What animated Rosamund Pike was something much more existential than the mere question of whether it is polite to take one’s phone out during the theater. As she reportedly said, for her, the connection between the actress and the audience is the most rewarding part of her job. The theatre differs from the cinema in the intimacy of the relationship between performer and viewer. In the cinema, a film is identical every time. But on stage, every performance is unique. In the hands of a skilled cast, a performance on stage is deeply intimate and personal, as the actors share something of themselves with the viewer. Breaking that connection is not listed in the catechism of sins, but perhaps should be.
More to the point, breaking it is unhealthy. Humanity is built and sustained on personal bonds, intimate moments and the human connections that are formed across candlelit dinner tables, or in a bedroom, or in the intimacy between performers and their audiences.
Pike – a performer of unusual emotional depth – understands that enough to care about it and to take the time to correct her audience. The conversation she has sparked should make venues consider whether, if audiences are not willing to protect themselves from the lure of their phones, it might be time to do it for them by banning the devices altogether.