It’s easy to get annoyed when others are tapping their phone while you try to talk to them, but it might be even worse if you’re giving a public lecture.
This is apparently what famous American photographer Stephen Shore had to deal with recently, and it became a bit too much for him because he abruptly cut short a lecture because of it.
During a late-September lecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Shore himself interrupted an attendee who was about to ask a question.
He then openly asked why some of those in the audience bothered being there if they were more interested in their phones.
“I saw at least dozens of you who spent the entire lecture looking at your phones. You’ve come here. You hear a talk and you can’t even pay attention to whom you’ve come to listen to. How can you pay attention to the food you eat or feel the sunlight on your skin?”
Amusingly, instead of frowning upon the comments he had just directed at them, the audience hesitated only briefly before breaking into strong applause.
Shore then simply stated, “I think this is a good place to stop” and walked off the stage, in what certainly didn’t seem like a staged reaction.
According to reporting from Shanghai Daily’s SHINE, someone present at the event claimed that Shore had misunderstood the phone habits of a part of the audience. One person attending stated that many of those looking at their phones were actually doing so to take notes while listening.
This person also claimed that this distinction was communicated to Shore through event staff and that some audience members even showed the photographer the videos of the notes they were taking.
Another attendee stated that Shore “said he felt much better about it” after finding these details out.
One event staff member also explained to Shangyou News,
“We were the co-organizer of Stephen Shore’s lecture, with CAFA as the host. There should be relevant etiquette guidelines for such events. If there was a misunderstanding, we will communicate with the esteemed artist to help him understand that some audience members were actually taking notes on their phones.”
Whether you believe that Shore’s initial public reaction was an unfair tantrum or a valid complaint about audience phone habits, it’s hard not to sympathize with him in an age where inattention is easier than ever.
In many public and private situations, it’s become common enough to see people completely slipping out of a dialogue because something in their phone takes precedence in their minds.
With such habits in mind, it’s easy to see why Shore might have misunderstood what he was seeing.
On the other hand, taking phone app notes during a lecture is certainly more practical than trying to scribble them onto an old fashioned notepad, and lecturers should keep this in mind before jumping to conclusions.
With that said, if I were watching a presentation I’m genuinely interested in, I’d at least try to keep my time on the screen, for any reason, to an absolute minimum.
