Finally, the government has taken action on one of the worst social phenomena of recent years: people spewing out music and videos from their phones on public transport. On Monday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced a campaign promising fines against such behavior. In theory, the move is welcome. But going by the example poster that has been released, there’s a glaring flaw in the plan.

“Watch videos quietly”, the poster advises. Unfortunately, it’s clear to see how these conversations are now going to go down:

“Can you use headphones, please?”

“It’s quiet like the sign says.”

“But I can still hear it. It’s annoying.”

“I don’t care. It’s not loud; leave me alone!”

If the campaign preserves this line, it could end up unintentionally validating those people still playing music from their phones. There would now be an officially stated rule that it’s ok to play videos from your phone as long as it’s “quiet” — which is an incredibly subjective term.

It’s important to get this policy right. Without meaningful change soon, the social norm will reach a tipping point at which those who object to phone noise become the strange ones. To some extent, that shift is already underway. Just 10 years ago, asking someone to turn their phone volume off entirely would have been unremarkable. Increasingly, though, people sit in silence, pretending not to hear the noise for fear of being judged for speaking up. The behavior is more common among some demographics, particularly tourists from countries where it appears to be even more normalized than it is here. But no group is entirely immune to the magnetic pull of the phone.

The big change is clearly that addictive short videos simply weren’t available on everyone’s phone until a few years ago. But it’s also true that there has been a decline in social trust and respect for public spaces. This is why, as the trend worsens, government messaging is so important: the best way to improve the situation is to empower people to enforce social norms, rather than relying on fines.

Instead, stating that it’s unacceptable to play any sound from your phone, not just “quiet” sound, is the best way to empower people to speak up. It’s easier for people to call out an offender if there’s an unambiguous official rule backing them up. Of course, this isn’t going to do much to make people call out those who look and act threatening. However, this is only a minority of offenders, and a clear rule would encourage people to speak up in the majority of cases.

There is still time for Burnham to announce that the poster above is merely a poorly thought-out initial design that will be corrected once it’s actually rolled out. If not, it would be another example of typically watered-down Labour policy.

Rail travel has always been a pleasure for many in British society. But to think that this could now forever be associated with a low level of noise coming from phones shows a complete lack of effort to take the problem seriously. In all likelihood, the failure to take proper action on this aural assault will only further degrade the public sphere.

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Will Solfiac is a London-based writer focusing on subjects including the politics and history of immigration. He can be found on Substack.

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