I went to a Jack White concert tonight, and to my surprise upon arrival, everyone in attendance had to lock their phone into a little tamper-proof phone straight-jacket after they entered the venue so that nobody was able to use their phone for the entire gig. I heard about Jack White doing it on previous tours, but this was the first time I had to surrender my phone for a gig myself.
And in all honesty I can't remember the last time I was in public for three hours straight without having access to my iPhone. I want to disclaim that statement with some sort of vague "I'm sure it's happened before," but I really don't know if it has.
So obviously, without being able to spend time between acts rereading emails I've already read and falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes, I had a lot of time to think about what the experience of not having a phone on me at a concert was like. Here are my four main observations.
For the first ten minutes, my brain kept reflexively firing neurons to open Instagram or scroll through the news whenever I felt a single moment without stimulation. But after ten minutes my frontal lobe got the memo and stopped this. The entertainment value of my phone was easy to forgo. What wasn't easy to forgo were the more practical tasks I wanted to use my phone for. Many times throughout the rest of the concert I wanted to write something down or add a reminder to do something or text someone a question before I forgot to do it, and not having my phone for these moments was a pain.
I still wish I would have been able to take a few videos at the concert. Sure, I totally understand how annoying it is for a performer to look out into a sea of smartphone cameras, and I'm sure Jack's incentive for banning phones is first and foremost to enhance his fans' concert experience rather than his own. But I also know that my memory is crap, and it's nice to have a video or two of a concert to remind me what the view was from my seat and what the stage looked like and what the atmosphere in the venue felt like. I'll happily sacrifice 5% of my attention in the moment to remember the event 90% better ten years from now.
I didn't feel significantly more "present" like I thought I would. It was nice not having to play mental tug-of-war every time a good song came on as I decided whether I should record a bit or not, but beyond that, the actual experience of watching the show felt relatively unchanged. My internal monolog still distracts me more than my phone ever could.
I missed absolutely nothing in the digital world while I was away. I came back to literally zero unread texts or missed calls. I was hardly missed.
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