Like the majority of people that exist in 2023, I have an unhealthy dependency on my phone. It pains me to admit that much of the time, I struggle to go half an hour without looking at it at least once. My attention span is in shreds, but you know one place where I can ignore my precious device for hours? A dark room that I’ve paid to be in that has a huge screen spoon feeding me entertainment!

Up until recently, it was an accepted rule that anybody obviously using their phone in a movie theater was being a douchebag. Apparently that is no longer the case, as the Barbenheimer phenomenon has revealed that many moviegoers are woefully ignorant of theater etiquette. Recently, people have been taking to Twitter to lament those who pay for the cinema experience, then spend the entire time texting, taking calls, or watching TikTok. If we’re on the other side of a new cultural movement, it certainly isn’t a good one.