The collapse of QUITE in the age of reels

A new kind of noise has entered Indian public life. It does not come from traffic, construction, loudspeakers, or machinery. It comes from the palm of a hand. Someone sits in a train, aircraft, hospital waiting area, restaurant, lift or queue. The phone comes out. A reel begins. Then another. Then a news clip. Then a WhatsApp forward. Then a devotional video. Then a child’s cartoon.


Reels are designed to grab attention in seconds. News clips arrive with urgency and drama. Children’s videos are loud and repetitive. Devotional content may be meaningful to one person, but intrusive to another. Comedy clips, speeches, songs, and forwards do the same thing when played aloud.


In a hospital, this is especially insensitive. Patients are anxious, tired, or in pain. Caregivers are already stretched. Families are waiting for reports and answers. A loud reel in such a space is not casual entertainment. It is a failure of empathy. In public transport, people cannot escape. In restaurants, people pay for the atmosphere too. In lifts and lobbies, sound travels. One loud video can disturb senior citizens, children studying, patients resting, or people working from home.

We often speak of noise pollution in India as if it comes only from outside: honking, drilling, festivals, traffic, rallies, construction sites. But now each of us may be carrying a source of noise in our own hands. That is why this epidemic is difficult to confront. It does not look like a public nuisance. It looks like normal phone use. But normal phone use becomes a public nuisance when the speaker is on.

The troubling part is how quickly this has become acceptable. People no longer feel embarrassed to play loud videos around strangers. Many do not even look up to see whether they are disturbing anyone. Some behave as though a train compartment, clinic, or restaurant is an extension of their living room.


Our phone may be entertaining us. It may be exhausting for someone else. The solution is simple. In public spaces, watch silently or use earphones. That is all. No invention, sacrifice, or great policy reform is needed before we begin. We only need to restore one basic boundary: private consumption must not become a public disturbance. Before playing any video in speaker mode in public, ask one question: Have I obtained permission from everyone who can hear this?

If the answer is no, the sound should stay off.


The next time your thumb moves towards a video in a public place, pause. Look around. That train compartment, hospital waiting area, restaurant, lift, or queue is not an audience. It is a shared space filled with people carrying their own fatigue, pain, thoughts, prayers, deadlines, and worries.

Your reel may be funny. Your news clip may feel urgent. Your devotional song may be meaningful. Your child’s cartoon may be convenient. But other people did not choose it. A phone on speaker mode may look like a small act. It is not. It is a daily test of whether we still understand public decency. Because a nation is not shaped only by big policies, tall buildings, highways, and digital revolutions. It is shaped by what citizens do when nobody is forcing them to behave well.

So let us begin with something simple.

In public, let the phone be smart.

And the citizen is smarter.