Am I a Victorian pearl clutcher or is this rude?

[LazySusan11]

At a hotel went for breakfast met other colleagues and on the table next to us is another lady, she’s got her iPad propped up on the table watching an episode of something..without headphones. No awareness of others around her that she might be disturbing me this isn’t normal is it?

I’m in hotels a lot and more and more people are doing this sort of thing. Are headphones suddenly obsolete?

YANBU. Sounds like it's quite common now? I hope it doesn't actually become the norm.

It is the same because I find mindless chatter as annoying as some people find the ipad. I put up with the chatter because I understand people have a right to chatter even if I find it annoying and other people have to put up with ipads for exactly the same reason.

Extremely rude

You'd think that in a decent hotel, a member of staff would have had a quite word.

grannytomine

It is the same because I find mindless chatter as annoying as some people find the ipad.

No, I don't mean why you believe the effect on you personally is the same as the effect of ipads on others, I mean how is the noise the same?

Did you notice what she was watching?

On the tram with my daughter a while back and we were in a lively conversation, but some teenage girls started playing music on their phone. Was so involved in the conversation that I kind of forgot where we were and instead of doing a passive-agressive stare or rolling my eyes I just broke off mid-sentence and said in a normal voice "Turn that down, we can't hear what we're saying" then continued right on with the conversation. The girls looked up all annoyed, but then seemed to acknowledge that we were indeed having a conversation and had just asked normally, and turned it down. I'd usually complain in a much more PA way, if at all, but this worked much better! Just saying it like you would to a friend.

YANBU and this kind of brazen rudeness drives me nuts! It is, as pp have said, getting more and more common as people allow devices to encroach on every bloody aspect of their lives. Every year at our school we have a kind of audience with the two class teachers to tell us what to expect for the year ahead. It’s for all parents/guardians and a crèche is provided. I have to do this x3 ever single year. Every single year group, and every single year, people bring in their toddlers, because they “just won’t go” in the crèche. They either whine endlessly, or are given iPads or phones, and the constant whining and begging for the device, then the dinging and sing-song noises that come out of them cause me to give my ultimate “are you fucking serious” face to the parents. The parents don’t care because, well, they’re obnoxious and rude.

granny no, other people don't have to put up with the iPads because they are not intrinsic to the restaurant setting the way chatter is.

The pitch or tone of overhead tinny speakerless phone/ iPad music or Audi is also definitely more universally annoying. Very few people find someone else's tinny electronic device audio from across the room less annoying than two people an equal distance away having a private conversation. One person in a thousand might I suppose...

*audio not Audi!

disahster, he told you the world didn't revolve around you, while pissing about with his ringtones in a public place and expecting everyone else to just put up with it? I'm back to not knowing whether to laugh or get furious, like with FlowerPot's cheap-suited bloke up thread

Yep rude.

What is exceptionally ridiculous though, is someone taking photos with a fucking ipad! 😂😂😂

When I see people doing this, I think 'what a twat.' 🙄

We process electronic sounds differently from 'organic' sounds, so talking sounds coming from an iPad are much more intrusive than talking coming from people sitting near us. This is scientifically proven, and is why grannytonine's point is wrong (though she's always like a dog with a bone on these threads). The two sounds are NOT the same and do NOT have the same effect on people near them, even if they're at the same volume.

Playing electronic sounds out loud in public is not okay. It's very rude.

Of course the general quiet talking of people in a dining room is totally different to the tinny sound of a device! Can't imagine how anyone thinks it is more pleasant than human voices.

OP YANBU. Unfortunately this is now the norm. Worst place is on a plane even with headphones in. I hate it. But have also known people to not put headphones in and just carry on regardless until I tell them it is really disturbing me

Last plane journey I was on, some annoying mother allowed their child to play a zappy screechy bell ring squealy type of computer game at full volume. There was nearly a mutiny on the plane with people complaining including me. It was a 6am flight, we were all knackered and did not want to listen to that. Mother tried to argue the toss but was shouted down.

It would be nice if hotels, airplanes, trains etc. had a polite sign obliging people to use headphones/ear buds when watching something on screen.

The buses round here do, just asshats ignore them and the drivers don't say anything as...lets be honest...assholes will be assholes so are kind of likely to start on the driver for telling them to stop being assholes.

Definitely rude. I'd move tables and tell the waitress you wanted a quieter table. .

I did exactly that this morning when I sat next to a group of loud people at breakfast in a restaurant One woman had the most annoying braying laugh. Don't know if the waitress said anything (or they heard me), but they quietened down afterwards.

Sympathy OP. Hell is other people etc. So very very wrong.

No, I don't mean why you believe the effect on you personally is the same as the effect of ipads on others, I mean how is the noise the same? The noise is the same because it is noise I find annoying just like the OP finds the ipad noise annoying. I don't think the attitude that because someone thinks ipad noise is annoying for them but chatter isn't then that is the end of it. I have the same rights they have, I put up with their chatter and they don't even have to put up with ipad noise from me as I don't have an ipad. I would be reading my kindle and I suppose someone will be affronted by that is it isn't what they find acceptable. Tough.

We process electronic sounds differently from 'organic' sounds, so talking sounds coming from an iPad are much more intrusive than talking coming from people sitting near us. This is scientifically proven, and is why grannytonine's point is wrong (though she's always like a dog with a bone on these threads). The two sounds are NOT the same and do NOT have the same effect on people near them, even if they're at the same volume. But the fact is some of us don't find electronic sounds annoying. I find the human voice far harder to tune out.

disahster, he told you the world didn't revolve around you, while pissing about with his ringtones in a public place and expecting everyone else to just put up with it? shock I'm back to not knowing whether to laugh or get furious, like with FlowerPot's cheap-suited bloke up thread

Yep he said just that! But he also stopped so maybe he kind of realised he was being completely unreasonable but didn't want to admit it. I told him that we also have quiet carriages in the UK (goodness knows why Eurostar doesn't) and he said "I know we have them in Germany too" so I just said headphones are an amazing invention or words to that effect and shut up myself.

Interestingly I think the French speakers (who could also speak Flemish/Dutch and English) must have understood our conversation in German, as they started talking more quietly after that.

The airline story above reminds me of another train one - my DH was on the train home a couple of weeks ago and he said a late teenage girl got on and had a very loud telephone conversation. He let it go, hoping she'd stop and she did. But a few minutes later her phone rang again and it started up again. He asked her if she could either stop or move as she was in the quiet carriage and said she gave a silly laugh and said no. At which point two other guys got up and backed DH up. She apparently said she'd move if they said please. DH said I'd already asked you politely but I'll ask you again, please would you move to another carriage or finish your conversation. Whereupon she moved. He's very mild, much less bolshy than I am, so I am quite sure he was very polite in the first place.

The only thing that concerned me a bit was I did wonder if the two guys would have got involved if it had been a 6 foot late teenage boy.

grannytomine
No, I don't mean why you believe the effect on you personally is the same as the effect of ipads on others, I mean how is the noise the same?
The noise is the same because it is noise I find annoying just like the OP finds the ipad noise annoying.

Er.. that's just you repeating what you said before. There is the noise itself, and then there is your perception of it, the effect. They are two different things.

Never mind. What I was hoping you would see was that the two noises are not - in reality - the same. Park your perception to one side for one moment. They are not the same. They are very different vibrations and longitudinal waves, and are transmitted through the air differently. That's why to most people the sound from these electronic devices is particularly annoying, disturbing and even painful.

You are a minority in your perception of electronic noise as being preferable to human voices. When we build successful, healthy, functioning societies where people must live together, for the most part we create environments that will satisfy most people. So that's why we construct good codes of behaviour to create comfortable environments for most people. Which means politeness and respect for the comfort of others in general, and no noisy ipads and phones.

Unnecessary loud voices also irritate me grannie, however sitting at a table with your iPad and no headphones is rude and inconsiderate. She wasn’t from the UK whatever she was watching was German. The breakfast area was fairly quiet and myself and my colleagues aren’t loud or shouty or have booming voices.

If she’s there tomorrow I’m pulling up a chair!

YABU to pin it on iPads. Rude people use any tablet or phone.