I am fed up with video calls in public

[Globules]

I'm currently away.

I went for a swim this morning. I couldn't believe seeing a mid 20s woman with her phone propped up against the edge of the swimming pool having a video call.

A man on the other end was watching her swim up and down, do somersaults and have a general chat throughout.

The ambience at the outdoor pool was dominated with the tinny voice of the man the other end of the call.

Whilst I was doing my laps, I reflected that we're increasingly becoming a society that can't cope with solitude and silence.

I see it in my adult children. I hear them late at night chatting to friends using phrases such as "look at this", hence I know they're on a video call.

I see it in myself to an extent, although I don't do video calls.

A big event I attended a couple of days ago whilst away was littered wth people holding up their phones up, so I could see they were on video calls in order for the person on the other end to participate too.

It frustrates me on the train and in hotel lobbies when people are having loud video chats. You can always hear the person on the other end. I have never done this, and never will, but it feels like this is getting much more prevalent.

Just me?

It’s not just you, it drives me absolutely insane. The majority of people just have no self awareness or respect for others.

It drives me nuts.

It has occurred to me when witnessing video calls on buses and other public transport that perhaps some people these days don’t really differentiate between in person and online. So, they see a video call as no different from chatting to someone sitting next to them. It’s not the same, and it’s really fucking annoying, but I wonder if that is what is going on?

The people doing this are morons. Total morons.

I would have been wishing for the phone to fall in the pool! I presume it was a hotel pool with no lifeguard?

in a leisure centre that would bot be allowed.

Drives me absolutely potty. It’s even happening in the gym changing room so you have to be careful not to accidentally show your tits to some stranger on the phone as some idiot will invariably be casually FaceTiming while in the CHANGING room. They’ve now put up signs that ask people to stop doing that. It’s insane.

I was on holiday last month, empty beach at 8:30pm, lovely colours in the sky, peace and quiet, only me and my partner and two others at the beach. I’m enjoying the scenery and absolutely loving the moment when I realise that one of the only other two people there is on FaceTime. She was on FaceTime for almost an hour, walking back and forth as if she wanted to make sure that you couldn’t escape her unless you moved far away - I moved a couple times but it wasn’t enough, she kept coming back! Utterly utterly bizarre, antisocial, selfish and dystopian. Don’t even care how dramatic this sounds.

It’s drives me mad! On tubes, trains everywhere. It’s seems much more irritating than having a conversation with someone next to you.

I was wishing for that to happen.

I purposely took the long route back to the changing room to avoid being near the phone - I didn't trust my foot not to flick out!

Hotel pool, yes.