I was at a shiur recently and the person giving the shiur - a very mechubadike Talmid Chochom - had his phone right in front of him on his shtender. It buzzed a few times. He kept looking at it.
I REALLY don't like telling people what to do - so I generally don't.
But he doesn't read the blog, so I'd like to make a point. As one who has given many shiurim where people weren't listening because they were busy with their phones, I must say that it is very disconcerting. But here I had the opposite feeling - not that the listeners weren't present but that the person giving the shiur wasn't really with us because his attentions were directed at his phone.
Research shows that just having a phone in sight already distracts a person and prevents him from giving his full attention to whatever he is doing.
So OF COURSE we should be מלמד זכות on others ["His wife or daughter was about to give birth" "He doubles as an emergency room doctor" "He likes to multitask"] - but we shouldn't be מלמד זכות on ourselves but rather try to do the right thing. We should be focused on the task at hand and when the outside world has no right to enter - it shouldn't be allowed. Such as in a Shul or Beis Medrash.
Imagine [not the Beatles "Imagine"] they put a public pay phone [remember those prehistoric machines???] in the middle of a Beis Medrash!! And all day people are going in, making loud phone calls and then exiting - numerous times a day. A scandal. Would NEVER happen.
That is EXACTLY what is happening today except that in my moshol there is ONE phone while today, usually the number of phones equals the number of the people in the Beis Medrash.
Sweetest friends - I can't stomach it....
