Texting at Movies? Probably Just a Matter of Time

Patrick Goldstein hates—hates—when people text in movie theaters. He's a "purist," he writes in the Los Angeles Times, and can make an impassioned argument about how texters are missing out on the "awe and exhilaration" a great movie can provide if they're constantly checking messages—and simultaneously lighting up the darkened theater for everyone else. And yet, Goldstein seems resigned to a future in which the practice is even more common.

Movie-related apps are everywhere, for instance. "Having tethered moviegoers even more tightly to their cell phones, will exhibitors really continue to draw the line when these same customers nestle into their seats and the lights go out?" he asks. "I doubt it." Theater execs tend to say all the right things about how texting ruins the moment, but they also need to get young people in the seats. Besides, "history proves Americans almost never resist technological change," he writes. Full column here. (More movies stories.)