I have always been like this.

When I was young my gran would shout at me if I spoke when any of her soaps were on, so I learned to stay quiet and respect her “me time”. The only problem was that she did not reciprocate and would constantly yammer on if I was trying to watch a film. She was very much of the “children should be seen and not heard” generation. If I pointed out her hypocrisy she would tell me how I should respect my elders. She honestly believed that you couldn’t show disrespect to a child, because adults were always right by default. It was maddening.

Later on in life I worked for a major cinema chain and I saw so much inconsiderate behaviour that it put me off going to the cinema more than a couple of times a year. If I do go to the cinema it is typically on a weekday morning outside of the school holidays so that I can maximise my chances of getting a screen to myself.

My mates are all on so many social media platforms that they are barely off their phones. They also have young kids so they are used to being disturbed and never seeing films through to the end. It has normalised staring at their phones during films because they concede that they will probably get distracted anyway, so why pay attention. I will add that they only do this at home. They have better manners than to do it in a cinema.

I don’t have the capacity to put something on in the background. If I am watching something it is because I want to watch it and it will get my full attention. If I do happen to get distracted I can pause it and come back to it. The idea of using a film or tv show as background noise whilst I doomscroll on my phone is the absolute antithesis of everything I love about film and tv.