The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis has set aside a section for people who can’t make it to intermission without their iPhones. According to the Daily Mail, they have

formalised a growing trend in theatre audiences to use their phones from within auditoria by giving obsessive tweeters a section of their own.

Long a refuge from daily tribulation, the theater is now “connected.” A ticket-holding tweeter can broadcast everything from the status of his digestion to play-by-play commentary about the production. But at least he’ll have to tweet from a separate seating area.

The Guthrie is probably right to do this. If we moderns can’t bear to be unhooked for two hours, there’s no other course. But how new is this bad behavior, really?

Read the accounts of opera-goers in the early 18th century. They would play cards, arrange business deals, and “flirt” behind the curtains of aristocratic boxes. Only when the solo arias or virtuoso duets were stunning enough did they pay attention.

So what changed the opera theater into a hushed, darkened spot? Richard Wagner, for one, forced the issue by designing a new kind of opera house (which he named a “festival playhouse” to emphasize its new nature). He stripped out the boxes, eliminated aisles, raked the seating, and minimized decor, forcing attention to the stage. It was a simple principle, really: take away the spaces where people socialize and the only thing left is the show.

Wagner and his contemporaries delivered compelling operas and plays with intensely serious themes. Realism, or verismo, riveted theater-goers in the late 19th century.

Few productions today can absorb us so completely. Volume levels are ratcheted up so high, folks have to cover their ears, rather than lean forward to listen. Nothing has been left unsaid, or unrevealed. Things can’t get gorier or more risqué, can they? But this overload of sensation apparently dulls our senses, and leaves audiences craving the excitement of on-line shopping and chatting on Facebook.

If people are happier coming to the theater with their phones ablazing and can be segregated from those who prefer to lose themselves in the production, then perhaps we all win. At least until writers and directors find new ways to compel our full attention. Welcome to 1713! I mean 2013.