To ask if using the speaker when on your phone in public is socially acceptable or simply downright rude

[JemimaPiddleDick]

DP is blind to the fact that some people may not want to hear someone else’s conversation or to be be heard while having a conversation.
I work away from home so use WhatsApp to call my partner every night while away. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve done a video call and found out halfway through that her DM / DSis / Dfriend is in the room and they’ve been listening to the whole conversation, also, we were having an afternoon drink in a half full country pub recently when her brother called, she took the call, on speaker, and spent the next 5 minutes having a chat the whole room could hear, because she wasn’t holding the phone to her ear she was speaking louder, people were staring, myself and our kids were mortified.

IABU - There’s nothing wrong with making conversations public
IANBU - It’s really crass behaviour

Awful, so rude

This drives me bonkers and I refuse to suffer in silence so will always ask people to take their phones off speaker or turn down loud 🎧. Some are apologetic but I'd say 75% are somewhere between pissed off and totally bemused and clearly hadn't even considered the implication their loud conversation/music might have on anyone else because they are self centred fuckers

Yanbu at all
It's the height of rudeness and shows a huge lack of respect for anyone else. It's about the "look at me" mentality.
Although I do think the worst ones are the ones who use a speaker in confined places like busses and every other word is swearing especially when there are young children on board too.
It's the same as playing music out loud

Can i ask what you all feel about someone in a wheelchair doing it in the street when they have to use their hands to get where they're going but need to speak/have been put on hold etc? (because they've just no other time)
Feel free tbh.

(PS other person is always told they're on speakerphone)

Yanbu. It is so rude

That's fine Elleherd, I can't imagine anyone objecting to that, or generally to people doing it if they need to. But the vast majority of the time, people don't. It's all part of the growing trend of a lot of people not to see any distinction between private and public space. I've asked people to turn down stuff on their phone / use headphones on the train and like PP have mentioned the reaction has been mostly bemusement. Like they've genuinely not considered that their behaviour affects people around them. How people get like that, I have no idea.

@Elleherd I would think the same of them as I would anyone else using a phone on speaker in public - inconsiderate fuckers who need to invest in some earphones

@Elleherd

Can i ask what you all feel about someone in a wheelchair doing it in the street when they have to use their hands to get where they're going but need to speak/have been put on hold etc? (because they've just no other time) Feel free tbh.

What a strange question, that's completely different of course.

@Alconleigh i'm always amazed that more people don't comment. You see people around you being all antsy about it eye rolling & tutting but very few actually say anything so the inconsiderate person never changes their behaviour because they continue oblivious which seems daft to me. You can politely ask someone and I've never had a situation where I've felt threatened - nearest I've come is one bloke who told me to rather aggressively to fuck off and I wasn't going to argue with someone like that so rolled my eyes and sat back down

YANBU
It's a bugbear of mine when people just use their phone in public never mind anything else!
I was sitting behind someone on a bus the other day. They were discussing what to get for tea from the chippy. Loudly. After much to - ing and fro - ing regarding the merits of fish n chips versus a steak kidney pudding, I nearly grabbed the bloody phone and ordered for her ! 🤬

Even when people haven’t got their phone on speaker, it’s very annoying when they have loud, work related conversations on public transport obviously speaking to some un when they seem to be going out of their way to show how busy and important they are.

I think it is generally antisocial but there are obvious exceptions such as the wheelchair use example above.

I also don't mind if I am on a train and someone is having a quick face time call with children at bedtime.

Bloody rude and inconsiderate.

I spent a significant amount of time in hospital a couple of years ago and the amount of people who spent hours on FaceTime to God-knows-who was unreal. Interestingly they didn’t have any actual visitors….

Mind you on a slightly amusing note… I speak another language fluently. One day a woman got on a train I was on, and she was having a loud conversation with her DH On the phone in said language. It was the kind of conversation you would only have if you thought no-one was listening/could understand you. All about how shit their lives were, what an arsehole he was, how crap he was in bed and so on.

If it had been in English the whole carriage would have known the intimate details of their (apparently crap) sex life among other things. But as it was it was just me. I was both and at the fact…

YANBU. It’s unfair on the person you are talking to to have them on speaker phone without letting them know if there are other people in the room and it is rude and annoying to others around you, especially when out in public.

FrippEnos

The big phone guy always comes to mind whenever I see someone on speaker phone in public. I may have imitated him on occasion as I walk past!

FOJN, you mean Dom Jolly, i always think of him too, and do the same!

Crass
Mil does this. I'll be speaking to her and then fil enters the conversation or I'll hear him muttering in the background. So rude.

That's fair enough lechatnoir, I do want to hear honest opinions.
Can I ask if you know what it is that makes the difference for you in hearing one side of a conversation on the street, going past, and hearing both?

(Agree I'm being selfish but afraid ear phones probably wont happen as it's yet another thing to try and fit on the front of my body to stop, get out, apply, stop, remove, put away, and carry around, without breaking and losing. I'm already permanently late and in disaray trying to badly manage too much on too little already.)

Please do note I'm talking about on the street, not indoors.

Yes. It's rude.

Re your partner, mention something really embarrassing for him. How's your penis discharge, did you go to the gp? How're your piles? Oh, remember when you did X embarrassing thing.

A few times of that and I bet he won't be so keen to have you on speaker 😁

@Elleherd

Please do note I'm talking about on the street, not indoors.

I think there’s a big difference between doing it on the street, where people are only near you briefly, & doing it in a cafe or on a bus with a captive audience.

@Elleherd I too am referring to enclosed spaces trains cafés et cetera not walking along the street. Yes it's irritating but it's so fleeting I can't let it bother me

I always brush some part of my head against phone & unintentionally end call if I don't use speaker on calls. I'm pretty ruddy clumsy with the phone. Also struggle to hear clearly without speaker setting.

There seems to be an increasing group of people who do this. I had a woman follow me around a store doing this. We were just interested in the same aisles. I couldn't concentrate. She decided it was fine to talk to someone on speaker with the volume on high. I really didn't want her noise in my head!

It's so inconsiderate. It seems based on the assumption that others won't listen or can't listen or can't filter. I definitely can't filter speaker conversations. I couldn't hear my dd in a cafe last week because the family behind were doing this.

I also want to know who can hear what I am saying. It's fine if the other person says you're on speaker and Sense8 is here...

I hope it's not purely driven by self absorption. Maybe it's because some people need constant noise in their environment and assume others want it too. I don't.

I politely asked the women in the store to turn off the speaker while she was standing next to me. She asked me what my problem was and point blank refused. She asked me to move away. She had joined me on three separate occasions and each time I'd moved until I couldn't.. It all seems very strange to me.