No-Phone Concert Zone

By Jenise Jackson
Blog Content Contributor

I really love attending concerts, and I’m a big fan of smaller venues because I appreciate the more personal feel you get from the artist as they perform. However, we live in a world full of technology and people who want others to envy them, so I usually get caught up in a sea of phones as I’m trying to enjoy the beauty of the live music. To be honest, I used to like documenting my experience at concerts through Snapchat just because I wanted people to be jealous of me enjoying myself. But then I realized I was really the one missing out. Because of this, I decided to start a new trend for myself. At future concerts, I will no longer be using my phone.

There’s such a thing as being present yet absent. I think we tend to be so caught up in the fact that we are in the same building as our adored artists that we forget that we can actually enjoy them in real life. I mean if we wanted to see them on the screen, we could have saved ourselves a lot of money and stayed in the comfort of our own home. One of my friends put it to me like this, “Do you like when people text during movies?” Of course I said no mainly because the light can be more distracting than people tend to think. Plus, why would you pay money to see a movie and not try to actively watch it? It was then that I realized the same translates to concerts. You have so many people on their phones that you’re sometimes blinded by the excessive light. Plus, there are so many small details that people could pay attention to if there weren’t trying to film every moment they could. I no longer want to be one of those people, so I have to make a change for the sake of my personal entertainment.

I’ve never attended a concert where there was real boundaries with phones. I would say that phone usage is basically just a norm. I’ve realized when I’m not distracted with my phone, I take in so much more of the experience. When an artist is a great live performer, the music just sounds better than the recording. That sound isn’t something you can hear everyday. Maybe this is your reasoning for you to record, trying to capture that perhaps once in a lifetime sound to look back on in the future. But when you look back on those memories, you will probably notice everyone else doing the same with their noise and bright phone lights. Can we really appreciate and listen to the artist if we are watching through our phone screens?

I get it, we all want to capture the memories and that’s okay when we keep that to a minimum. Sometimes it’s just best to live through those memories to truly appreciate them while they are happening. Maybe the no phone rule isn’t for you, but if you partake in it I’m sure you’ll notice a difference. Plus you won’t have to complain about your phone dying before the end of the set. All I ask is that you enjoy live music while it is actually live!

Featured image by Jenise Jackson.