Xavier is going to see a comedy, Gambit, British Fraud. During the film, her neighbor takes out her smartphone and checks her email.
Xavier is disturbed by the light from the smartphone. He asks the person to turn it off. She shrugs and continues.
Annoyed by this inability, Xavier searches for a UGC employee who forces the viewer to turn off their phone.
Moviegoers were already annoyed by the sound of pine trees crushing popcorn and the unwanted ringing of phones. Now they also have to be distracted from the light of small screens.
Are the theater operators aware of the embarrassment that this entails?
Yes, replies UGC, the second French operator behind Pathé-Gaumont: “Reception staff intervene regularly on request or spontaneously to encourage viewers to turn off their screens.”
In addition, “most rooms are equipped with signal jammer” that prevent telephones from ringing and make conversations impossible.
UGC says it is “attentive to anything that might interfere with the screening: late arrivals, for example, will not be accepted in cinemas once the film has largely begun.”
Pathé-Gaumont states that it is running “temporary campaigns against the use of the telephone” like these that accompany the screening of the film Hitchcock:
The master of tension speaks personally to the audience: “Please do not write any text during the film, because it makes everyone a psycho!”
In addition, Pathé Gaumont displays a “Live well my Screening” charter in all cinemas, reminding you that it is advisable to switch off your mobile phone in order to watch a film in good conditions.
Marc Olivier Sebbag, General Delegate of the National Federation of French Cinemas, assures us that the use of the smartphone in the cinema is marginal, even if some viewers follow the principle of “atawad”, that is, “anytime and in any way,” any device.
An Ifop survey on cell phone addiction published on February 22nd found that only 9% of smartphone owners would use them in the cinema to check their messages (SMS or MMS), their emails or their voicemail. .
(995 people were interviewed online for the one-on-one meetings on digital mobility from January 24th to 25th).
They would therefore do this much less often than watching TV (54%).
Mr Sebbag adds that “the public is divided” about the embarrassment popcorn presents, for example: “In the United States, during the movie, viewers get up to buy something and the light in the room is much more … strong than in France, “he says.
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