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?

@LakieLady I've noticed people blaring music more and more while out hillwalking. I think some people are terrified of silence.

The worst place was in a hospital ward - fucking outrageous- more so when it was visitors!

The reason that it is illegal to use a phone, (not talk on the phone) is because of the screen and having to look at it and use your hands to set up calls etc.

Only partly true. It is also far more distracting to listen to a phone call than it is to listen to the radio. Which is why even using hands free it can be categorised as driving without due care and attention and why the advice is not to use a phone at all even hands free. The reason it's more distracting is because it demands more of your attention. Which is what all these vapid chumps are doing when they loudly face time about their boring fucking lives - they're demanding people's attention and brain processing because of the specific type of noise they're making.

This! One about not hogging the middle lane as it causes accidents and use flipping headphones in public please. Its got worse since Covid, public transport and even the cinema is rife with teenagers listening to crap on their phones. So bloody annoying

Yep, and trains please.

Trains are lost cause, sadly.

Most people on non commuter services are pissed/feral now anyway.

My pet hate is people with headphones on the train who pretend not to be disturbing others but the music is so freakin loud they might as well not bother. Even teen DD gets riled by that and we can't believe how deafening it actually must be for the headphone wearer!

Or on my train that doesn't go underground but has sketchy connection for about 40 min but people persist with their unnecessarily loud conversation being cut off every 3 min and then just going over what they just said about 10 times. I can't believe all the convos are that urgent they can't wait til you've finished the journey (it's a commuter train not a 4 hr journey)

Several people have replied already with why a conversation through a loudspeaker is not equally but more annoying/intrusive than an in-person conversation. The quality of sound is different and the brain processes it in a different way to regular ambient noise.

It's not about the volume though

There is something about screen noise that is particularly intrusive

Headphones are a thing

It's harder to tune out phone conversations:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/study-its-harder-to-tune-out-cell-phone-talkers-than-regular-human-conversations/274128/

People on mobile phones speak 1.6 times as loudly as people chatting face-to-face: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201312/why-are-public-cell-phone-users-so-annoying

It's considered poor ettiquette: https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/sc-fam-social-graces-talking-on-speaker-phone-in-public-0723-20190726-s4koear4arfbfj7tfu5yyuqj6a-story.html

https://www.today.com/life/phone-etiquette-rcna95939

The people who do this are just rude. I don't think they even realize it, it's just how they act all the time, they are loud people and so using a phone is just a continuation of how they are. If you went to their house, it would be the same.

The people who don’t have the common decency to use headphones are unlikely to obey signs.

@Borough people are rightly questioning that science, it's likely more due to it being a younger driver problems. who have less experience (more likely to crash) and cheaper cars so more accidents report as resulting in more than minor experience vs older drivers in better cars so an accident results in exchanging insurance details (so the police wouldn't know the older driver was on the phone).

Personally as a late millennial I don't have a problem with video calls etc as we were the early adopters. Tho what I don't get is why these people don't have AirPods etc if that's their vibe.

Sadly I have to agree.

I don't get why you wouldn't use headphones if you want to watch videos etc while out and about.

And why FaceTime/video calls while in the middle of the supermarket - nobody else wants to hear about the latest family drama...

And why FaceTime/video calls while in the middle of the supermarket

It's just attention seeking bollocks.

Kind of amazing though in a way - seems like just five minutes ago we were all getting told that everyone under 40 had too much anxiety to make phone calls and now suddenly the country is full of people not only calling but video calling each other for hours on end, all anxiety gone.

Yes I think there is an element of that

My ds age 4 repeats everything he hears when someone is on speaker phone. He doesn't with normal chatter but does with phone calls as he struggles to block it out. That quickly shuts them up.

blue tooth hearing aids are not available on the NHS everywhere in UK and thye also sometimes depend on having the latest phone too I have blue tooth hearing aids but they don't work with a 2020 android phone neither do they work with my DD's 2021 Iphone they do work with the TV and my car phone
I generally don't talk on my phone in noisy environments as I still can't hear, hearing aids to not work like glasses they do not restore all sounds espaecially at certain frequencies

What if someone sat down for a coffee and set up their TV on the cafe table and started watching that?

It's the same thing, just a smaller screen.

Wow where do you live where there are "feral" passengers??

I travel by train all the time and I've not seen that.

Check my name

I recently took a train from Euston to Manchester. On the way there, there were 2 separate steps of people playing very loud music from their phones. One was 2 young men, the other a large family. The large family had members in a different carriage as there was no space and they kept coming and sitting in the ailses.and blocking them. They kept getting told off by the train staff who would just barge past them in the end but they refused to go and sit down.

Same train on the way back, I had to move carriages as the women sitting across from me was learning German and had some sort of language program blasting German verbs at me, maximum volume.

People on trains are indeed feral, some of them anyway.

You don't need Bluetooth, you can just attach normal earbuds/earphones to your phone when listening to a phone call. Bluetooth ones are obviously more convenient and I understand are now starting to become available on the NHS.

Before I got my bluetooth ones, I just used normal wired earphones to listen to music on my phone and make phone calls. Less than a tenner on Amazon.

I agree. Some people are just loud wherever they are and whatever they do. Not just with devices, but normal voice levels too!

Amazing how some couples/families can be sat in a cafe or on a train having a conversation and you can't hear them at all because they're talking quietly. Yet, somewhere else, similar group are virtually shouting at each other despite it being a "normal" conversation and you can hear every word. It's all just "performance".

It just comes down to manners and consideration really. Some people are just self-obsessed and selfish and don't give a toss about others. In most situations, whether you're on the phone or talking in person, you really don't need to talk loudly (unless you're at a football match or in a loud pub/club/gig). People need to start learning to talk more quietly, and need to start remembering to talk their earbuds/earphones out with them rather than having their devices on full loudness.