Wetherspoons ban on antisocial phone use is welcome and should be extended to all public places

Customers are now barred from using phones to play music or have loud conversations on speaker-mode in their establishments. I’ve not heard a vox pop yet where someone thinks curbing this modern malaise is a bad thing.

Announcing the new policy last week, chairman and founder Sir Tim Martin said: "In a world dominated by other people's music and amplified sound, Wetherspoon pubs are an oasis of tranquillity and contemplation.”

While this is evidence he doesn’t frequent his venues on a Saturday evening, Martin’s bang on otherwise about the problems caused by other people’s din.

There’s baffling entitlement in imposing unwanted noise on others, whether in pubs, restaurants, or on public transport. It affects all of us occasionally, but, for many, it’s become a daily source of grinding frustration.

We’ve always had to negotiate the hell of other people, of course. Those who find busy subway entrances a perfect place to stop for a chat, for example. Or, the rustler with the sweet poke in the cinema or theatre, who, as our incredulity intensifies, we silently urge to stop the noise by just opening the bloody packet a bit wider.

And, who hasn’t been driven spare by an audible masticator on a long train journey? As well as having an inability to chew with their mouth closed, such people always seem to have insisted on getting the biggest poke of thick-ridged crunchy crisps as part of their Meal Deal.

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Our intolerance for some of these things can feel unreasonable, and we’ll give ourselves a ticking off for not being able to put up with what’s a temporary annoyance. In at least some of these cases, the cause is an almost admirable obliviousness to the irritation one is causing. Embarrassment when made self-aware may, at least sometimes, be forthcoming.

Modern life and social media sometimes make it easy to forget this, but: mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. Most of us don’t want to irk people. To get in each other’s space; to cause each other anguish.

And, that is precisely what causes near-universal distress when a small minority of people blast music, scroll endlessly through jarring TikToks, or make inconsiderate loud phone calls in public: nobody who does these things cares about how annoying they’re being.

It only takes one person imposing their will on everyone around them – whether the rollicking drunk in an otherwise quiet bar blasting techno, or the soberly suited woman braying on speaker to her colleague on the train at 9:15am - to cause distress, frustration, and a rupturing of everyone’s peace.

The discourtesy towards others feels – must be! - purposeful. A selfish act. An ‘I don’t care; I am an island’ attitude.

I’m hardly alone in worrying about what it says about social cohesion generally when grown adults – for we’re not talking about kids here, though some have aped our habits – act this way.

I’d welcome Sir Tim Martin’s ban being extended to all public transport, instantly improving everyone’s daily commute or weekend day trip. Perhaps all pubs and bars might consider following suit?

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But let’s not be cruel: blasting unwanted tunes or conducting very loud speaker-phone conversations in public isn’t illegal, so, let’s take some lessons from the 2006 smoking ban.

Let’s have designated wrong un spaces for the hopelessly noise-addicted.

I’m tempted to suggest the ‘FaceTime and tinny music area’ should be made as unappealing as those airless rooms for smokers in Doha airport. Gagging my way through a roll-up with fellow dafties between connecting international flights was a ghastly, depressing, unlikely to ever be repeated experience.

But, there’s a crucial difference in the levels of antisocial behaviour here: though we doomed puffers’ self-harming ways shouldn’t be encouraged, there’s no denying we’re good at sparking life-affirming, engaging small talk with perfect strangers, while indulging in our ill-advised cigs in many a smoking area.

There could be none of that in the designated Noisy B******* zone. There, screens would be held aloft as everyone screeched into them. Being oblivious to the needs - or even existence - of other people is the main issue here. Trying to ignore others in such circumstances would be challenging.

I’ve often been tempted to blast a nice bit of Vivaldi to counter someone’s reliably dreadful tunes pounding the unwilling ears of everyone else in the train carriage: a daft but pointed attempt at a wake-up call. There must be some part of these people that doesn’t want to be this intolerable?

At risk of whimsy, we owe each other – family and strangers alike - a great deal. At least, we do, if we stand any chance of social cohesion. That comes, in no small part, from abiding by many unspoken rules that make us interact decently with others in public.

As we’ve become attuned to the dangers of online harms; to the general depletion of our time and sanity brought about by smartphones, I worry we’ve missed how much they’ve changed offline behaviour and attitudes.

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Not so long ago, we all agreed the beeping buttons from fanatical texters were annoying and should be curbed. If we grudgingly accept TikTok addicts’ zombie-scrolling with no headphones, or the family Zoom conducted openly on the mid-afternoon train to Helensburgh, what’s next?

It shouldn’t take a formal ban to stop something we all know is bad behaviour. But, if it helps normalise a much-needed mass switching to silent, then cheers to Sir Tim Martin.

I’d still advise avoiding his establishments on Saturday evenings, though; at least if the noise of modern life makes you ache for tranquillity and calm contemplation.