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If someone's texting in your audience, here are three very specific strategies you can
try. For starters, simply walk over near the person, especially if they are in the front
row. Once you physically get close, typically they're like, "Oh oh, I got busted." Without
you saying anything, they'll put their phone away. Now, the key here is you're not looking
at them. You're looking in another direction, so you don't seem like you're bothered or
rude or anything like that. That's one strategy.
Another strategy is to see that the person is texting over here and reference them while
looking over here. "Oh, as Jim was saying to me before the class..." And now Jim's like,
he hears his name. He's looking up, so he is brought back in.
Something else you can do is ask the person a question, but you're not looking at them.
You're far away, so you don't seem like you've pounced on them. "Jim, has that ever happened
to you?" Now he's going to bring back that face up, the phone goes down.
But I urge you, you've got to nip this in the bud, because if you let your audience
start talking, texting, checking e-mail, they're not going to respect you. There will be a
ripple effect, and you will have lost them. So nip it in the bud.