Picture these situations:
You are in a movie theater and the people behind you are talking.
Someone gets on your bus and plays a video on their phone, without using their headphones.
You are in a class and a few of your peers are talking instead of listening to the teacher.
Does any of this bother you? How do you react to people who are loud or annoying in public? Do you tend to ignore the noise or would you ask: “Can you please keep it down?”
In “The Case for Telling Total Strangers to Shut Up,” an article published recently in the The New York Times Magazine, August Thompson writes that “reminding others how to behave in public is a civic duty.” He begins:
I was raised by a movie talker. When I was a child, my dad and I went to our local theater every Wednesday to see whatever was out. If that week’s offering was pure schlock, my dad and I would yuk it up. His humor, complemented by an insider’s perspective afforded to him by a career as a writer and director, was incisive and perfect to me. Like a sidelined quarterback barking at the television on Super Bowl Sunday, he called out narrative inconsistencies or forced plot turns with ease, or pointed out actors’ tics that escaped less practiced eyes.
Though I lacked my dad’s professional elegance and volume control, I mimicked this chatty habit for years — until my buddies and I went to see “Sahara,” the 2005 Breck Eisner movie about treasure hunters searching for a Civil War-era ship in the desert. I was 14, and I considered talking through a movie a thrill and a continuation of a storied legacy. I assumed that my fellow audience members would appreciate my inherent hilarity, which was obviously of greater value than Eisner’s desert tomfoolery.
But halfway into my monologue lampooning the ridiculousness of a purposefully ridiculous movie, a person leaned over and let out a shush, her voice as harsh as the white static from a TV. I burst out laughing. Who was this high and mighty loner seeing “Sahara” at 2 p.m. on a Saturday? I continued talking, and a few minutes later, she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Some of us actually work hard and pay good money to come to the movies.” My brain squelched with embarrassment, and I slumped into quiet. I became aware, for the first time, that not only was I not the funniest person in the theater; I was also downright annoying to everyone around me.
Since then, Mr. Thompson writes, he has been a “shusher.” He writes:
Shushing was once commonplace, if a little snooty and silly. Now, however, a phone-addicted culture has made us all seemingly oblivious to just how annoying we are in public. Our ways of being annoying have worsened: People take pictures at the cinema, flash on; they watch entire movies on the train without headphones. As selfishness is normalized, calling people out for their bad behavior has become more fraught.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
What do you think about Mr. Thompson’s argument? Is it OK to shush people who are noisy in public? Is it “a civic duty” to do so, as Mr. Thompson writes?
Have you experienced anything similar to what is described in the article? Have you ever been the “shusher” or the person getting shushed? Have you seen others shush or be shushed? If so, what did you think?
If you think shushing is inappropriate, what is the best way to handle situations like those described in the article? Ignore what is happening? Make eye contact with the disruptive person or perhaps clear your throat noisily? If you were to confront the person, what would you say?
Do you agree with the writer that “a phone-addicted culture has made us all seemingly oblivious to just how annoying we are in public”? Why or why not? Are there other reasons that explain why people might be inconsiderate in public?
Mr. Thompson ends the article with an anecdote about criticizing a friend for looking at his phone during a movie, only to learn that the friend had been checking for updates about a loved one’s medical emergency. “I have learned to be a little more patient,” Mr. Thompson writes. What do you think about that? Should we give people the benefit of the doubt when they are doing something we view as rude?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
