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The Average Movie Theater Has Hundreds of Screens
theodp writes "The "average" movie theater reportedly has a capacity of 200-300 people. Which, thanks to the wonder of mobile devices, means that it also has hundreds of screens. And — thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and texting — hundreds of potential annoyances. Which prompts NY film critic David Edelstein to ask: How Should We Treat Texters and Talkers at Movie Theaters? 'Has our culture become so private that no one knows how to behave anymore in public?' Edelstein wonders. 'Is selfishness the rule rather than exception? Are people who say, "Shut up and turn off your phone" today's version of "You kids get off my lawn"?' Jason Bailey argues that the only way to solve movie theaters' talking and texting problem is to give in to it, perhaps with anything-goes phone-friendly talk-amongst-yourselves screenings in the seven and eight o'clock hours coupled with no-tolerance shows later in the evening. Any other ideas?" You could always throw it.
For watching the movie, leaving my phone in my pocket, and not talking to anyone? Someone is going to punch me in the face for that? Man I really need to recalibrate my views on rudeness and societal expectations.
Hello,911 Emergency. ...
Hello,I was at a theater watching a movie and someone collapsed and stopped breathing.
OK, sir, please stay calm. I've dispatched an ambulance. In the mean time, can you help give first aid? I'll talk you though this step by step; just follow my instructions.
OK.
Now, first I need to you .
Uh, sorry, I can do that right now. See, the theater blocks cell phones in the theaters, so I'm in the hallway and can't really reach the guy to do that.
In this case we are balancing the people being slightly annoyed vs. being able to give faster, higher quality, first aid to people with health issues, potentially saving a life. Now everyone can make their own moral and ethical judgement on which is of greater importance based on the severity of the problems and the likelihood it will occur. If one believes the latter is of enough rarity, it may be sufficient to justify placing the former at higher importance. Personally, I probably wouldn't. I mean, I get annoyed with people all the time; you just deal with it. So, I wouldn't place annoyance at as high enough issue to justify even a low probability loss of life or serious injury.
Sure there could be technical solutions that would allow only 911 within the theater, but then it becomes a business decision for the theater whether the cost (and potential liability if it doesn't work 100% of the time) outweighs a potential loss in revenue.
At the end of the day, this is generally falls into the category of thing people don't like, but aren't will to pay more to avoid. It would be easy to have more isolated individual small rooms rather that rows of seats packed together (in fact, some theaters do this in Asia), but then you would have less seats so would need to charge more per seat. Based on how most theaters are laid out in the US, I would say most people wouldn't be willing to pay for this, so I dismiss their complaints of annoyance as selfish and arrogant, which I am also guilty of sometimes.