Mediation, Cell Phones, and Patti LuPone

{4:12 minutes to read} It may be old news by the time you read this, but the Patti LuPone incident during her July theatre performance at Lincoln Center spurred me to write about something I have been cogitating on for some time anyway.

The incident, as reported in The New York Times on July 9th by Erik Piepenburg, titled “Hold The Phone, It’s Patti LuPone,” was described this way:

During a matinee performance of Shows for Days at the Mitzi Newhouse theatre, while the show was in full swing, a young woman seated at the end of the second row started texting. To add insult to injury, the bright illumination from her phone in the darkened theatre was obvious to everyone around her and distracted the actors. As if this wasn’t bad enough, she not only continued to text during the second act, but shared the text with her theatre companion who was sitting next to her and even had a conversation with him about it!

All of this was happening on the heels of 4 cell phones having already gone off during this very same performance – 2 from the same phone. After a discussion with her fellow actors during intermission, Patti LuPone apparently decided that, if this woman continued to text during the second act, she was going to take action. And so she did! Without breaking character, Ms. LuPone walked into the audience and took the woman’s phone!

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s official: we have a social etiquette disease epidemic in this country, and it’s only getting worse.

I bring this up because it has become an increasingly common issue during mediation. The sessions generally take about 1 to 2 hours, depending on the client’s time constraints and wishes. Is it too much to ask to either put the phones on mute or shut them off during this very important meeting?

The work we do in mediation is imperative. Each session builds upon the discussion from the previous session, ultimately leading to resolution. If you didn’t “get” that 1 + 1 equals 2, then by the time you get to 8 + 8 = 16, you’re lost. The topics and issues can be daunting, confusing and exhausting, so attention must be paid.

The moment I see someone’s eyes drop, and I suspect hands are texting below the table, I stop talking. I can’t tell you how many times someone will realize that there is silence in the room, look up at me, and say: “Oh, that’s okay, I’m listening.” Really? How can that be? Even if you ARE listening, are you:

• absorbing,
• integrating, and
• assessing

all the information that’s being bandied around the room?

How much does it stymie and frustrate the process, when something has to be repeated later because you weren’t really listening the first time? Plenty.

When someone comes into the room and informs me from the start that they need to keep their phone on because they are waiting for a call from their son, daughter, babysitter, etc., I get it. I’m talking about the compulsive need to be constantly staring at a screen, which takes us away from the present moment. And THIS present moment is yours!

So, phones off, please.