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

I wouldn’t for one moment at a disabled person using their phone in such a manner. surely that depends. If someone genuinely cannot use headphones i.e. in the case of a deaf person, then of course that is understandable. But disability in and of itself does not preclude someone from exhibiting common decency and manners.

If I was sitting in a cafe/on a bus/train having a loud conversation with someone on speakerphone it would be understandable if people felt that was rude. Because it is. My disability does not alter that fact.

Lechatnoir Wireless headsets aren't expensive lol seriously for the rich? Don't be so dramatic. You just don't want to carry another bit of kit. Its hardly massive!

Talk about 'Let them eat cake!' I invited honest opinion, not sneering.
Punching down invites reciprocal punching up.

£30 is a lot here, and there's nothing left to cut. Currently I'm in flip flops because I can't afford the footwear required to fit my feet and braces.

You have very little idea what working in a wheelchair is like, how little some end up with after additional expenses, or how much I and others already have to carry in a very limited space.

You're right that I don't want to carry anymore kit without a place for it, I honestly don't know where or how to add anything more that isn't tiny.

I'm an embarrassing failing disaster area already wearing two bulging bum bags of kit, and lots hung off my neck as well as a drain bag on one thigh. Tubes coming out of me catch on things, and I struggle with breaking things and losing things as zips come undone struggling to get doors open and pulling myself up ramps by handrails. (designed to be pushed up not self propelled up) To add to it my wheelchairs too heavy for me, because I can't afford the contribution required from me for the right one. I suffer bruising and rubbing from much of what I have to carry.
I don't feel able to carry any sort of hand bag or rucksack having had three taken off me, (one violently even though I hadn't argued) and have to have a crap phone that muggers cant be bothered with. I'm not seeking pity, just some understanding of what my existence is like.

Yes I'm being selfish in a world that generally is, but I am listening and do hear you about how annoying you find it to have someone on speakerphone on the street. Currently I'm not seeing much I can do about it, but I didn't realize it was such a deal, and have learnt and accepted from this thread that for some it really is.

So please hear me; however annoying you find it all, there's nothing "dramatic" or to "lol" about someone not being able to manage financially or physically what others get to take for granted.

Alternative Perspective I agree, but my inquiry was specifically about doing it on the street while wheeling between places.

@elleherd

The dramatic and lol was over your statement not you as a person or your circumstances, calling buying wireless headphones for rich people. Maybe from your position you might think people are all richer than you but when people say rich people they usually mean millionaires.

Chill out and actually read what I wrote properly before jumping on me about lol you for being disabled or not financially well off.