To think cafes should have signs asking people not to have their phones on speaker?

[PrinceHaz]

In the last few years I’ve noticed an increase in people being unaware of the effect of the noise from their phones on people nearby.
Nearly every time I go for lunch or for a coffee people will be talking with their phones on speaker or playing videos with sound.
Recently, I approached someone who had spent her whole meal showing her friend videos next to me and told her the sound had prompted me to leave. She looked at me as if I was mad.
I am surprised cafes and restaurants don’t have signs asking people not to do this. The sound is tinny and for me really intrusive.
So AIBU and over sensitive?

Absolutely not the same things!

Years ago I was a member of a gym and spa, they went a bit mad when they opened and they were letting all sorts in for tuppence halfpenny, one Friday morning a guy arrived with his iPad on full blast, when we asked him to turn it down he refused, so one of my GF’s it really doesn’t work for everyone in here.

He replied it works for me………🙄

We talked to management, who came down and repeated the conversation we had had with him back to him, and then uttered the immortal line…………..And it doesn’t work for us either, please leave now.

There was never any noise after that. 😂

This. A sign should be unnecessary, the issue is obnoxious people

YANBU but if the noise really made you have to leave I’d speak up before that point and ask them to turn it down/off!

I agree that the sound is intrusive and people should not do it.

But I think we need to hear ourselves up to use real person to person communication more. Because it is the real communication and awareness of being considerate in community spaces that is lacking, and more and more impersonal bossy signs don’t help.

Let’s all try out ‘excuse me, would you mind using your headphones please?’ Etc.

One of the laws I'm going to introduce on my first day as World Benevolent Dictator.

Yanbu but it's everywhere now. So many people have full on face time conversations/play games/content without earphones in public that there's obviously a substantial amount of them who consider it to be acceptable. It's not, as far as I'm concerned, but it's depressingly common. I listened to a woman face timing her husband the other day and for the last fifteen minutes of the call she was actually face timing her fucking dog. It's like the end times really.

YANBU at all.

If anything I’d add anywhere in public (transport, hospitals etc)

Last week I was on a BA flight and they included in the general announcementy bit that using the video /camera or loud speakers on a device was banned. I found it shocking that they needed to say it to be frank, but quite glad that they had adjusted to do so, if it was necessary

On a similar note, I always find it depressing to see signs stating that abuse of staff will not be tolerated. A damning indictment of society that such signs are necessary.

Agree in principle, but I’m starting to find that staff are using this as a basis to shut down any form of complaint, even if articulated reasonably.

I agree, I've seen them point at the sign even when the customer/patient was being perfectly reasonable, not shouting, not arguing, not being abusive, just being assertive as to asking for what was their right. It's an easy cop-out for the receptionist/customer service staff to terminate the conversation without justification.

I spent a week in hospital recently and people on speakerphone was the norm. I asked a nurse to ask one person who was on speakerphone nearly a hour to tone down the noise a bit, the patient just ignored the nurse. I’m asked another person who was on speakerphone after the lights went out to be quiet, I was ignored.

Having just suffered through a 3 hour Ryanair flight with a child on an iPad at full volume and all 4 grandparents watching on indulgently, this gives me a glimmer of hope.

I despair that parents (and grandparents) are teaching their children that it's acceptable.

It’s an entirely different type of noise to normal social noise.
I am happy to hear chatting and laughing. I can tolerate children crying and all the various sounds you’d expect when you’re out.
But the tinny sound coming from a phone is something else. It’s not part of the normal social buzz. As I said before, the sound is tinny and it’s intrusive in a way that I other sounds aren’t.

Sorry, TheRoses. I’m not understanding why phone noises are different to people chatting, if it’s at the same level of loudness. Perhaps you can explain.

It’s not the noise level, it’s the type of noise. Although that said, some people’s speaker phone conversations are exceptionally loud.

Perhaps you could get your local cafe to put up a sign that says “Corner for Tutting at phone users” for you to use?

Thinking about what PP said about her brother joining in other people's conversations, I think it would be great if we all did this. Join in, offer your own take on things - advice, indignation, laughter, whatever is appropriate to their conversation. When, in outrage, they say "Do you mind, this is a private conversation!", you can point out actually it isn't private at all. Someone watching watching funny cat videos with all the crap music and cartoon sound effects - lean over their shoulder and guffaw in their ear. I don't have the nerve to do it but I really, really wish I did.

I do this because cafes are so loud I can’t hear the person otherwise

And you don’t find anything remotely wrong with what you’re doing?

No? I can barely hear myself think when I go into a cafe. My phone on loud speaker makes virtually no difference

You're not being unreasonable @PrinceHaz I was in a Costa some months ago, and there was a woman up the corner by the window on a table, (a table for four,) with all her paperwork and laptop and phone and everything all spread all over the table so no one else could get on it.

Practically shouting at the table (into her phone) on some kind of conference call where you could hear three or four other people talking as well. It went on for the 15 to 20 minutes I was in there, and was hugely distracting and very, very annoying.

I left and went around the High Street for half an hour - then walked past the Costa - and she was still bloody in there next to the window. Why they did not ask her to leave is absolutely beyond me. I could hear her shouty voice from the outside!

YANBU. I hate my commute for this reason.

I fantasise about developing Carrie type abilities and making their phones melt.

I’m presuming from your responses that you do this.
I’d be interested in your input about why having your phone on speaker and playing videos with sound in a public place is not antisocial.

Agree. I saw a woman watching a film in Costa, on her phone, last Friday. Phone propped up in the centre of the table.