A crowd of hundreds, even thousands of fans are all packed into a venue, lights flashing and speakers blasting, all huddling around the performer, fighting for a glimpse of the action. The people at the concert vary in their style choice, age and energy, but one common thread ties them all together: the ever present appearance of countless phones.
A sea of screens crowd every concert. Attendees can barely see over the mass of iPhones blocking the view on the floor ahead of them. No longer looking at the artist and instead staring at the six inch screen, the presence of cell phones ruins the concert experience.
People attend concerts to make memories and enjoy their favorite songs in a lively atmosphere with others who share similar passions. These unique experiences are dampened dramatically by the presence of ringing and flashing devices in hand after hand.
Fans often feel the need to record every second of these events, especially ones that take absorbent amounts of time, effort, energy and money to attend. They hope to keep every minute of the two hour performance for safe keeping in their phones, encapsulated as videos of the artist and selfie-style videos of themselves, singing alongside their closest friends and family.
The truth is it’s hard to capture a memory that you barely made in the first place. I often find my eyes gravitating down to my phone at concerts, whether or not this is the goal. Instead of looking at my favorite superstar in a dazzling outfit on the stage, I focus on my phone, restraining my singing and dancing in order to preserve my time capsule videos, sometimes even spending the entire three-minute length of a song with my eyes glued to my cell phone. In these fruitless attempts to preserve my memories, I risk not making them to begin with.
Every second of these concerts are recorded online for people to see, whether by professional photographers or by ordinary people available on the TikTok For You page. Instead of spending two hours staring at my phone, I prefer to take videos of my favorite songs, maybe even just the chorus, and get the rest of the videos from online if I want them.
Placing the phone in your pocket or purse for just a portion of the concert will allow you to live in the moment.
