The fact that these people are ruining the experience for fellow members of the audience is bad enough. Equally bad is the disrespect they show to the performers and to all of the other people involved in creating these works. It's hard to imagine that they appreciate the "word of mouth" if it comes with the price tag of attracting people who aren't there to enjoy the performance so much as to boast, "Look at me! I'm at the opera (or symphony, or ballet, or theater)! My insights are important and interesting - much more so thatn what's happening on stage!"

Really???? Is it really so difficult to put the phone away for two hours. What is next church?

If marketing directors think that most of the tweeting will be about the performance (and those quoted "Madama Butterfly" tweets weren't very insightful, anyway), they're in la-la land. As any frequent social media user knows-and that includes me--once the device is open and you comment on the show, you'll just HAVE to click on a funny re-tweeted You Tube video, or a political comment on Facebook, or an email from your friend. How can the venue know what they're doing? I don't think the unofficial mobile users I've unfortunately been seated near at the BSO--and there have been many--were thoughtfully tweeting musical commentary (some were taking mobile non-flash photos). They weren't engaging with the performance, and I couldn't do so, either. Unless you can wall off the tweeters from the rest of us, or schedule special interactive "everyone tweets" shows (that could be interesting), just DON'T. Do you really think you can find new, committed patrons among people who can't keep an attention span for the 45 minutes till intermission?

Gotta love those insightful and revealing tweets from the performance of "Madame Butterfly". C'mon, you don't have to instantly put every thought and feeling you're having into written expression. Whatever happened to going out for a drink or coffee after a show and animatedly discussing it with your friends? That's when you can express your feelings about Cio-Cio San's fate.

Congrats to Globe scooping the Onion. This is a joke, right?

If you can't enjoy an event without the accompaniment of an electronic device than you have a serious problem and should probably seek professional help. I will not buy tickets for any event where this sort of thing is encouraged. I don't want to hear about "special seating" for the tweeters. Unless that seating is in another room it still detracts from the atmosphere in the audience. Not to mention the poor souls who end up in the seats surrounding the tweeters section.

Not only is the idiot with the phone in his hand missing what he came to see, he's disturbing everyone around him. Leave the damn thing home or at least turn it off and keep it in your pocket. How is this different from someone bringing a Game Boy to the performance and playing a video game on mute. Imagine sitting next to that? By the way nimitta's comments below were far more insightful than the article.

"Eric Andersen, 35, an IBM IT architect with 7,000 Twitter followers, says tweeting has become such a big part of his life that he no longer draws a distinction between commenting to a person who is with him physically and a person who exists in his smartphone." Did he really say that? If so, I hope he wasn't referring to the context of tweeting during a live play or concert. The kudzu of tweeting cannot invade the extraordinary silence and stillness of a charged performance without making its presence known and entangling others. If the BSO, the Huntington, ART, or other arts organizations don't recognize and protect this uniquely powerful aspect of live performance, they are unfit to steward it. The disembodiment and 'electronic narcissism' implicit in the premise of the article are disturbing. In the midst of an artistic experience such as a play, the audience inhabits a shared creative space affecting and affected by the unique collective experience. Both commenting to a person physically present and tapping away to a smartphone 'friend' necessarily perturb that space, which is why neither has been accepted in a theater or concert hall. One has to ask: does a symphony tweeter suppose that his moment-by-moment fiddling and commentary should somehow be privileged over the music itself? Are 'theater tweeters' entirely oblivious to the secondhand smoke given off not only by their glowing screens but by their serial uncouplings from the art itself? Those who imagine that tweeting or other device-fondling makes them more engaged are fooling themselves, as I saw at a playoff game last year. Many had their electronica in hand, and those who did kept missing the action and saying, "What happened?". Thank goodness for the instant replay on the Jumbotron! One had to wonder: what was the point of paying all that money to be at the game, when you weren't really at the game?

Ridiculous. Shut the damn phone off-period.