"Feeling Truly Free While Dancing: Many Clubgoers Believe Phones Are Detracting from the Dancefloor Experience"] - Guitar | Technique

A new survey has found that half of clubbers think that the use of phones in clubs are “ruining” the dancefloor experience.

It comes at a time when the idea of going phones-free is increasingly an issue in clubland. Fabric and Fold in London have banned them and the relaunched Sankeys in Manchester will be phones-free when it returns next month.

The survey, commissioned by Ray-Ban Meta and conducted by Censuswide suggests that clubs that install such a policy wouldn’t necessarily face opposition from punters.

Censuswide interviewed 2000 adults in October and whilst yes, half thought phones were ruining the dancefloor, interestingly 55% admitted they had used theirs while dancing.

Of those, 60% said that they used phones on the dancefloor to capture themselves and their friends dancing. Meanwhile, over a third (34%) used them to share content on social media and communicate with friends.

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The survey also revealed that 47% said that it is the music itself that makes the dancefloor special, ahead of 43% who said that it’s the feeling of dancing with friends and 31% saying it is the experience of being lost in the moment that is the most special.

One interested stakeholder in all this is veteran DJ Fat Tony who commented on the survey’s results, saying: “Phones have been a blessing and a curse in my DJing life. While I love to be able to document so many special moments, their overuse has certainly ruined the vibe on many a dancefloor at the most iconic establishments.”

“Clubbing is all about energy and connection to the music, and while capturing that matters, the reality is screens take us out of the moment.”

The DJ recently held a phone-free night in London called Club 2.0 where phones were kept in special pouches and punters wore wearable tech – Ray-Ban Meta glasses, in fact – to capture the night (if they so wished).

Whether you think essentially wearing a screen owned by one of the tech giants is a step forward is a matter of some debate. But Fat Tony seems to think they’re a solution, saying they’re “the future of nightlife.”