Why Mobile Phones Are Annoying

griffinn writes "Jakob Neilsen recently conducted a study comparing the perceived annoyance level of two commuters having a face-to-face conversation and one commuter talking on the mobile phone. Interestingly enough, subjects were also asked whether the ring tone is annoying, and people didn't find the ring to be particularly bad."

Comments

Ringtones?

[ImpiousPunk]

How are those damn ring tones NOT annoying? "Hey look how cool I am with my 50 cent ring tone!" What ever happened to a plain phone, that rings, vibrates and stores contact information. I find the whole ringtone /instant messaging and even the internet on my phone quite useless.

Here is South-East Asia

[api_syurga]

In South-East Asia, where I am from, having a handphone is almost as important as being literate;you can't really live without it.You can but its hard to communicate long distance since public land-line phones are not well mantained and are in generally bad condition.Its no longer a matter of status/fashion statement.
This is why public cell-phone ethics is a serious issue here.In general, the older ones have a tendency to talk too loudly, however I do noticed that the younger generations have learnt to speak as unobtrusively as possible, maybe realising the phone-speaker can actually pickup their voice without having to shout across the room.

My 2 cents

Try living in Asia for a while...

[Enoch Root]

Having lived for nearly a year in Shanghai, I'm all but immune to cellphones. As a matter of fact, I've been one of those people who not only leave their cellphone on in the theater, but actually take the time to answer if it rings. I kid you not, this is normal behavior here.

And why not? In China, as well as most parts of Asia, cellphones are not an annoyance in any way. They're just a part of life. I think in the West, cellphones were initially thought to be annoying because they were an obnoxious show of money, and this has carried on to this day. In China and South Korea, having a cellphone is part of life and is not considered as annoying.

Methink the people surveyed here thought a cellphone conversation was more annoying than a face-to-face conversation simply because it's, well, a cellphone conversation. We still tiptoe around cellphones in the West. For all I can see, this annoyance is purely cultural.

(Earlier today, I saw a perfect picture of modern-day Shanghai: in a sea of bicycles, a man riding, and a woman seated in the Chinese way in equilibrium on the back of the bike with both her legs on one side... And as the man pedals his old rusted bike, the girl behind her is merrily thumb-keying SMS messages to her friends.)

It's only a matter of habit

[wizrd_nml]

Living in a country where mobile phone use is quite common and is not seen as being annoying in the least, it's quite strange for me to read all these posts about how they are perceived differently in the US.

Let me first start by saying that I agree mobile phone use does have its etiquette, and certain limits should be respected (i.e. volume of the ring tone in a quiet place, such as a library).

But I really think it's only a matter of habit. I believe if an American lived in Sweden for a while (a country with one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates), they would quickly get used to hearing phones ringing and people talking on them all the time, without feeling necessarily annoyed. It's the constant reinforcement by others in US society that mobile phones are in fact extremely annoying that maintains this perception.

It's almost as if people go out of their way to get annoyed at someone talking on the phone. Because logically speaking, and as the article states, if you only hear half the conversation, you should only be bothered half as much. And if listening to just one side of the conversation is bothering you, then why are you listening in the first place?

Re:Cell phone annoyance time in theaters

[jawtheshark]

Well, I do everytime I go to the movies. Or better said, the last ad they pass just before the main movie is sponsored by a cellphone service provider. It used the THX surround system to make different cellphone ringtones come from about anywhere in the theather. It's a cacaphony of cellphones. When it's over on the screen they display "The movie is now beginning, please turn off your cellphone (sponsored by $CELLHONE_COMPANY).".

I have never heard a real cellphone go off after that ad.

Re:I hate it...

[BenjyD]

I think the problem is that the phone covers your ear, so you can't hear so well and the normal feedback that controls your voice doesn't work so well.

Normal phones got round this by feeding back some of the signal from the microphone to the earpiece, so you could hear yourself speaking a little. Unfortunately, mobiles don't seem to do this.