Why the panic about texting in cinemas? Phones can breath new life into old spaces | Arwa Mahdawi

Last week the cinema chain AMC caused outrage when it announced it would allow phone use in its theatres. But should we be so afraid of augmenting the experience?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that millennials are the worst. Here, for example, is a small selection of things millennials have been accused of ruining recently: the workplace, marriage, the economy, the American wine industry, the equestrian industry, nightclubs, the Tour de France, the world. Last week, the latest casualty of millennial machinations looked to be the cinema. On Thursday, AMC, the world's biggest cinema chain, suggested it might start allowing phone use in cinemas because, hey, that's what young people want.

How do we know that's what young people want? Have they been holding mobile-phone-lit vigils outside cinemas? Are junior millennials going on strike? Not exactly. Rather, Adam Aron, the 61-year-old CEO of AMC Entertainment, tells us so. In a quote that contains graphic imagery some readers may find disturbing, Aron explains: "When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone " they hear: please cut off your left arm above the elbow."