The Crowded Train Experiment

Have you ever noticed how you modify your behaviour the moment you step into a crowed train?

It was a Friday night, on my commute home, when my phone battery died. Without my mobile armour, I was exposed, faced with the prospect of thirty long minutes watching or trying to ignore strangers. Instead, I made a choice; I switched on my attitude of active anonymous observer. What I watched was a captivating show where everyone was simultaneously performing and the audiencing:

“Night Time is Cool Time”: A young man with bleached blonde hair, wearing sunglasses, moved his head nonchalantly around, seeing all in the carriage, yet his eyes invisible to all he sees.

The Music Zone: A teenager with oversized headphones rhythmically nods her head, looking around to ensure people noticed how deeply she was "in the zone" with her music.

"I’m Still Extremely Busy": A man in a sharp suit stared intensely at a tablet, tapping it with urgency. He was projecting an image of high-stakes productivity to a carriage of strangers, most of who weren't actually looking.

The Sensitive Crowd: When a woman accidentally dropped her travel card, then her bag, people nearby immediately adjusted their own bags and looked away, displaying "polite disinterest" so she wouldn't feel embarrassed by her publically seen fumble.

The Clandestine Spectator: As I adjusted the hair falling in my face, a young woman sitting opposite me adjusted hers accordingly. This mirroring probably meant she was watching me, so I smiled. She flickered a smile back then swiftly averted her eyes – she’d been caught in a covert act of audiencing.

In everyday life we are nearly always audiencing. We look at others to decipher social cues, and we try to avoid the eyes of others to make ourselves feel comfortable. Subconsciously and consciously, we adjust our own behaviour, implicitly aware that we are both audiencing and are being audienced.

Next time you are in public without your phone, look around, do the experiment. How are people managing attention, their own and others, in a space full of strangers? What strategies are people using to ensure they don’t have to see you? And what actions do they take to conceal their own active audiencing, or signal their desire to be audienced?

Post a comment below and let me know your observations!