[hanley]

In the past few years I've noticed this pattern more and more - flight attendant asks passenger to turn off iPhone, passenger simply pushes the top button to turn off the screen, flight attendant accepts this. So flight attendants either don't know or don't care that turning the screen off doesn't turn off the device.

I'd be willing to bet that most people don't bother to actually turn off devices / switch to airplane mode. On a flight last month I even watched a guy turn off the screen on his iPad when asked to shut it off, then as soon as the attendant walked away he turned it on again and continued to use it throughout take-off.