Am I old or has shite behaviour become normal behaviour?

Yes, family sat in a cafe. Email child with iPad on full volume. No ear phones, no attempts to quieten it. It was really distracting and annoying!!

People are twats.

Sitting at the doctors last week the lady sitting next to me (60s) was watching videos on full volume on her phone. It is so so so annoying!!

Any time I've forgotten my headphones I've though no music for me where ever I am. Not inflict my choice on everyone else!

Certainly playing stuff out loud is a specific but of shite behaviour that seems to have spiked post Covid. We had the first round of playing music out loud on buses etc when music on your phone was a novelty but it seemed to have died out as I think people realised it sounded crap and tinny and wasn't enjoyable to listen to.

I think in recent years with video and sound quality improving on devices people have gone back to it. 😖Rather than telling people to turn off, both DH I tend to say 'Can you use headphones please?' and it's interesting that at least half the time they get a set out and start using them. I think sometimes people just can't be arsed and are hoping no one will noticed. One woman huffed at DH on the tube the other week 'Well I was only going to listen to one thing' but the fact is no one knew that. I do give people a few minutes usually as sometimes if it's tiktok or insta or something, it is just one thing and then they stop it, but it's still irritating.

Absolutely ! I live in a small market town and the attitude of some drivers to pedestrians is disgraceful. I don’t try to cross the road anywhere other than a zebra crossing or pelican lights but have lost count of the number of drivers who just don’t stop when I am clearly on the crossing , often just smiling an inane apology or shrugging as they sail past. Oh well I am 60 and invisible of course but it has happened when I have been with my grandchildren too. I do remonstrate especially if they have squealed to a halt inches away and have had the occasional sincere apology but I I have also had abuse.
Yes people are getting more and more entitled and selfish.

Are you actually trying to compare people listening to music through headphones (even if crappy ones) to people playing full movies and tv programmes lout loud with no headphones at all?
Not remotely comparable in terms of noise or respect for others which is what this thread is about.

Why not tell them to turn it down?

I was at a concert recently and the people behind me talked through the first 5 songs so I turned round and said “excuse me, can you please not talk whilst they are playing”, and they stopped.

YABU to seethe. Just tell them to turn it down.

Agree with PP that there is sensory overload. Noise, advertising, screens… It’s like living in Times Square!

The thing I hate the most is when there’s loud, running tannoy advertising in shops. I’m already here, shut up!

I totally agree OP! I was on a 3 hour bus journey last week & a guy a couple of rows up literally had back to back face time calls with what seemed like everyone in his contacts. It was unbelievable! Full volume. No attempt to moderate the volume of his voice. He was speaking a foreign language.

The rare occasion he was between calls he played some game with the volume still up loud

The guy sitting next to him asked him politely to please turn it down but he just ignored him. It was infuriating as on a bus you're really trapped.

I was on a train in Germany during the summer & there was a man playing something on his phone with the volume up & the guard walked by & told him to turn it down & he did!

I do that too! I hate how car drivers think they’re superior to pedestrians.

Obviously no ones expecting the world to be like a library or monastry but I think it is inconsiderate to play music/watch films/facetime people loudly in public places. Especially if you could wear headphones but have chosen not to.

I guess there has become a grey area for what is acceptable in public. Years ago lots of people wouldn't eat in public and now that's deemed ok. People put make up on, shave, clip their nails, floss their teeth (🤢) on the train and watching/listening to things without thinking about the volume is another

And I disagree it's always been like it. I think its definitely worse with phones abd tablets because 99% of people have them. There were limited number of people prepared to buy the 8 x enormous batteries to fuel their ghetto blasters in public and not everyone had Walkmans. I don't remember ever noticing them at the cinema

My son splashed out a bit extra on a first class train seat recently because he’s so sick of the noise on trains and he’s only nineteen!

Nobody is complaining about "normal" noise; people talking, baby crying etc. This is about occupying public space with loud noise of your choice; music/film etc. Try commuting for an hour while listening to baby shark on high volume going on repeat...

I'm going to bite and go against the grain here but I think you're being unreasonable. You live in a world with other people they're going to make noise just deal with it like everyone else has to.

If it's your neighbour making noise all night then that would be different.

Yesterday in Costa several families with young dc got together and the adults sat downstairs and let their dc go upstairs to run around in a hoard pissing off the upstairs customers. The dc stayed ages, left snacks and rubbish everywhere (not from costa) and their parents only collected them when the staff told the kids off for running around when they were carry trays of empty cups and plates.

Selfish behaviour indeed.

It is getting worse on buses for sure. However I remember stomping around Polzeath and Tintagel with my portable cassette player blasting out Black Sabbath in 1978. I must have seemed such a twat but thought I was cool.

No you are totally right BUT —- say something. I get culturally as Brits we just get annoyed, give a look and then walk away seething but it’s perfectly fine to say ‘hi, would you mind turning that down a bit as I can’t hear through my headphones with your programme on full blast’. Yeah they may be annoyed but honestly we enable this behaviour if no one ever says anything.

You are NOT being unreasonable ! I do call people out on this selfish behaviour all the time (OK not when there is a big guy looking thuggish). Always nicely and politely "Would you mind turning the volume down please, I try to sleep (airplane)/ have a conversation/ listen to something in my earphones." Most of the time people do turn down the volume without a fuss, on occasion I even get an apology. But it's amazing how selfish and rude people are and how no consideration is taken to others. It leaves me fuming because I have taught my children to pay attention not to bother others. In airplanes they play without volume/have headphones. Always tell them to not speak loudly as to not bother fellow passangers and then you got this twats turning up the volume for their kids completely oblivious that they are bothering everyone around them. Leaves me fuming but I'm your age as well OP (45) so maybe it's just a generation thing of not caring about others (although my children are teens and have learnt how to be respectful so not really an excuse).

Oh and I'm not even old but I'm a serial confronter. Have been called a "Karen" on plenty of occasions but I don't care.

Most recently I went to the cinema for the first time in a couple of years, the behaviour was outrageous. It was a horror movie so no kids to blame it on. Just noisy, entitled adults. Who the hell thinks it's acceptable to come into a film 10 minutes after it's started, blasting everyone with your phone torch whilst trying to find your seat?!

It's because this generation is obsessed with the 'self'.

I'm currently working a contract that comes into contact with young people (16 - 25) and what struck me is, the level of entitlement in their general attitude, and how the mental health card gets played at every opportunity especially as leverage to get their own way: I had one young madam flounce out saying, 'Your organisation will be sorry if anything happens to me!' And this isn't a one off occurrence...

Mental Health & Wellbeing is going to tomorrow's mass epidemic. Personally, I think we've spurned a monster and unless there is a cultural shift and resilience is taught and becomes fashionable, there's going to be a generation that's just too self indulgent to achieve anything.

Also they love their labels (ADHD, Bipolar, Anxiety, Depression, OCD, on the Spectrum, etc) yet when you ask them if they've had an official assessment and diagnosis, they um and ah...

I think people are getting ruder and more selfish. Parents just give noisy devices and don't care as much. I am also getting older and more crotchety!

My examples usually relate to cinema or theatre, places where it used to be the norm to sit quietly, no devices, respect the show and performers.

I took my dc to the cinema yesterday. Not 'baby friendly' just a normal showing. Toddlers were roaming around, screaming, parents just sat looking at their phones ignoring the kids. One actually got a kids tablet out and put some cartoons on full blast, but then left it playing on the seat while the kid inevitably wandered off up and down the stairs. My kids are now old enough to actively want to watch a film, they don't want to sit for 90 mins of film drowned out by toddler shrieks. 1-2 year olds clearly aren't that bothered and don't have the patience for a 90 min film with a plot. Why did none of those parents just take their kids out, like I did when mine were that age and I realised 'oops they are uninterested, we'll try again when they're older?'

Even when I go to the cinema without kids, there are adults on their phones ignoring the screen, but annoying everyone with stupid phone screens. What's the point? Just stay at home scrolling!

At the theatre people talk, check phones, constantly get up and down returning with drinks throughout performances, then need the loo, then rinse and repeat. These are big shows that have cost £££ to buy tickets for. Why did they bother if they just want to have a chat or get drunk?! Why can't they just wait for the interval?

Ha ..that reminds me of when I went for a lovely walk at a local beauty spot only to have a man and his friend walking the dog while blasting out a radio programme at full volume. I kept trying to go a different track and then running into him again. I was so pissed off.

Yes, I’ve encountered teenagers doing this on buses and in the streets since music-playing phones existed. So around 20yrs. Obviously ‘forever’ is just an emphasis meaning it’s nothing new. I even remember teens having mini speakers for discmans in the 90s on public transport.

Urrgh. Once I had a bloke behind me on a 2hr train journey watching Line of Duty on full volume on his phone. I asked him to use earphones, and he looked at me blankly, so I told him who H was before moving seats.

I don’t think people have ever been that considerate about noise. In the 80s, boomboxes were all over the place. People would sometimes play them on trains, walking down the street, etc. In the 90s huge sounds systems were not uncommon in cars, driving around the town (or parking up) with heavy bass thudding out. In the 2000s, with the advent of mobile phones with much poorer microphones than nowadays, loud phone conversations seemed to be everywhere. I also think loud conversations on planes and trains used to be more common. I always remember people standing around on planes chatting in groups, I hardly ever see that happen nowadays. And on trains large groups, all talking, seemed very common but not so much anymore. (Possibly this change is more about how I traveled when I was younger - generally for leisure, whereas I traveled more for work as I got older)

I have found, as I’ve got older, that I find loud noise more irritating and somewhat overwhelming. I can’t make out conversation over noise the way I used to be able to. Is it possible you’re noticing it more now because you’re older?