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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."
The ringtones arent the bad part.
The bad part is the loud speakers that really dont need a phone in the first place.
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
Switch to Verizon and you won't have to keep yelling can you hear me now. No seriously - CDMA which is used by Verizon and Sprint have positive feedback meaning that the phone continually transmits and receives; so what you say but what happens is you hear background noises and you perceive mentally that the person has your complete attention.
With other vendors that use TDMA such as ATT, Cingular, TMobile they have to electronic introduce background noise because this technology doesn't continually transmit. They introduce clicks and pops to simulate background noise. This gives you the perception that you have to yell to keep the other persons attention.
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.
How about a study showing the time delay from when a cellphone rings in the theater to when people get mad, measured in milliseconds. In L.A. it must be higher than here,because we get people from there talkin on phones like it's their job, IN the theater, DURING the movie.
stuff |
I beleive people tend to talk louder while on a cellphone. They repeat themselves over and over. "Can you hear me? I said..." People will talk on a cellphone without regard to their "real life" companion... sometimes I feel as if I'm not really there when someone gets involved in a conversation. And its annoying because, when I want to listen in, I only hear half of the conversation!! :-)
Just my US$0.02
I can't stand when someone has a cell phone conversation and speaks too loud. It's as if these people are trying to let everyone else know that they are "cool" and talk so loud that you can pretty much follow thier conversation, even though you are only hearing one side. I think it's funny too the people that pimp through the mall with the high-tech headset attatched. Usually these are the people that appear not to have a dime to thier name, but somehow still have the most expensive phone on the market. I wish people on cell phones would be more courteous, and only take calls where acceptable, and then only speak as loud as they need too.
--
Retail Retreat
My "ringer" is set to vibrate - wherever I am, because other people don't need to hear the ringing. When I'm in a bookstore, library or restaurant, if I take or make a call I either walk out to the lobby, or find a place where others aren't. And I wear a headset when I drive, but I still see tons of people breaking my state's cell phone law, despite an alleged "ticket blitz."
I think these guys have been conducting this experiment on the train I catch to work for the last two years.
I should buy some cement.
I rather like their hypothesis that people pay more attention to half a conversation than a full one and it seems it may be dead on. While I don't particularly listen in on others' conversations, I know I definitely overhear a cell conversation, even at normal volume, because having only half the conversation seems to leave my brain wondering and pondering the other half more.
Although, I can't believe they don't think the rings are annoying. I just wish a phone could have at least one decent normal ringer now... I don't want a song, but there really aren't options other than those now. The most recent phone we bought was for my fiance and all the rings it came with were songs. We figured we'd download something normal and only found more songs. Ultimately, we just picked the song ringer that sounded the least annoying.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
The study was done by Monk et al. Nielsen's story is merely an abstract.
Original article: Andrew Monk, Jenni Carroll, Sarah Parker, and Mark Blythe: "Why are Mobile Phones Annoying?" Behaviour and Information Technology, vol. 23, no. 1, 2004, pp. 33-41.
Yet.
However, one time I was in a bathroom and the guy in the next stall took a call on his cell phone. I immediately made all sorts of grunting, straining, and moaning noises as if I were trying to pass a moose. He hung up after twenty seconds, and before he could say anything to me, I thanked him and returned to the quiet matter at hand.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
I agree. What's even more annoying is those two way plans that work like walkie talkies. In such a situation, not only do you have to listen to the person talking but also their companion over the phone.
" when I want to listen in, I only hear half of the conversation "
Trust me, unless you are with a friend who's talking to another friend, you really don't.
It is that I cannot get a good cell phone anymore that doesn't come with a camera, so I have to decide to either leave my cell phone in the car while I am at work or get a dumbed down basic cell phone.
These manufactures really aren't thinking of the part of the market that buys the most cell phones, and that is the corporations, and most corporations have strict guidlines against cameras. So it really blows, and I hope they come to they senses and stop marketing to the teeny-boppers. At least they could put out comparable phone that doesn't have that camera.
On the contrary. I believe most would find the ring tone to be most annoying.
The funny thing is that they have done a controlled study, and you haven't. No matter what you believe until you actually do a controlled study you're opinion would seem to be wrong.
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
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.)
Someone walking down the street talking on a cell phone doesn't bother me, nor does someone sitting in a restaurant talking on a cell phone.
What REALLY bothers me is when I'm sitting in a presentation at a conference (or something like that) and they repeatedly ask that people turn off cell phones or set them to vibrate. Then, naturally, someone's phones has to ring half way through.
Now answer me this, what kind of fucked up individual sits there while someone clearly asks them to silence their phone and doesn't? What is the thought process? Is it "Well, everyone else is turning silencing their phones like they asked, but they couldn't have meant me" or is it more "I'm not going to silence my phone, I'll just assume that nobody will call me"? Or is it that these people somehow forgot that they HAVE a phone?
I've never understood this but it seems to happen every time. Almost as if making the announcement before a presentation to silence phones CAUSES one to ring eventually.
Oh, and the worst is when the phone is in some kind of bag or briefcase and the owner just ignores it like everyone around him doesn't know it is his and he doesn't want to give away that HE is the asshole. We all know it is your phone you goober, looking around like you are trying to figure out whos it is will not fool anyone so turn it off!
There, I feel better now.
Finkployd
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?
Hello. HELLO.
I'm writing on slashdot.SLASHDOT
Nah its rubbish
Omnis amans amens
What it really comes down to is a matter of how nosey you can be. We all are motivated to some degree by a sense of morbid curiosity -- a simple enough desire to know everything. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. If two people choose to have a conversation within earshot of me, I am not going to be made to feel the slightest bit guilty for listening in {however, I would draw the line at passing on information received without consent. Being privy to a secret doesn't give you the right to broadcast it}. If it's that important, they can always get up and go somewhere else.
If two people are having a face to face conversation in a language in which you are fluent, then you can hear both sides of the conversation. You can then make a fully-informed decision just how much attention to pay to it.
If one person is on a mobile phone, having one side of a conversation in a language in which you are fluent, it can drive you crazy trying to work out what is going on. You probably are devoting more attention to it than you can afford, and this also increases annoyance.
Two people talking face to face in a language in which you are not fluent, can also be extremely annoying.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I occassionally do some work for a person who works as a producer in Los Angeles. So far, she has answered her cellphone at a museum, at a classical music concert, while in meetings and on a date. The last time I called her she mentioned after about three minutes that she was at a movie theater, watching a movie. I asked her why she even bothered to answer her mobile. I think she was actually dumbfounded that anyone would not answer their phone when it rang.
I suspect that one part of why hearing half a conversation is more annoying has to do with the intermittent nature of half a conversation. Whenever someone starts talking near me, particularly if they are using a loud voice, I listen for a moment to see if they are talking to me. If they are in a conversation where I an hear both parts it's easier to ignore as it's easy to tell that they are not addressing me. With the stop/start pattern of half a conversation, I think most people are subconsciously triggered to pay attention to see if someone wants to talk to them, every time the local speaker makes a remark.
Will people stop focusing on the wrong thing (cell phone) and return focus to the actual source of the problem (asshole)?
They're annoying because..they're annoying.
-The insipid ringtones (hi, Britney!)
-The shouting
-The uniformity of the conversation (I'M ON A TRAIN! WHERE ARE YOU?)
-The blandness of what's being said (YES WELL I WAS SAYING TO MARGE THAT I REALLY LIKE THE FLOWERS AND MARGE SAID...)
I've noticed that the people who speak more quietly on phones tend to make a more educated and lucid impression--they stick to a conversation, for them a phone chat isn't some HYPER-/<3WL 5H1T D00D, but a tool, and they understand that they don't have to yell to be heard.
Maybe talking face to face with someone makes it easier for them to smack you upside the head when you say something idiotic.
To be perfectly honest, when idiots converse loudly in person, it's equally irritating. But then, that's probably just me.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
It's getting harder and harder to pass yourself off as a bona-fide wack-job these days...
A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.
A few thoughts on this research.
:) ) will get annoyed quicker. If this is true, it's unfortunate, because it means that even if the majority of mobile phone users can be educated to be considerate, people will still get annoyed even at them, because they've been "pre-annoyed" by the inconsiderate people.
I'm surprised the author made no reference to the relative volumes of the mobile phone converstation and the face to face conversations. Was the mobile phone conversation the same volume as the normal conversation, the loud conversation, or somewhere in between? If it was the same volume as the loud conversation, the would support the conclusions drawn by the author, that annoyance is primarily due to the exagggerated volume. If it was the same volume as the normal conversation, something else about mobile phones is annoying people.
I suspect that peoples expectations have some affect as well. People who have been annoyed by mobile phones before (ie everyone
Or is that just me?
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Install a few strong lamps in the roof, that is motor-aimed.
;)
Add some radio-tracking stuff, that listens for active cell-phones, and controlls the lamps.
As soon as somebody start talking in their phone, a directed (strong!) light beem will shine on them from above, or to be techincal towards the phone, but the end result is the same.
The angry shouts from the crowd, now that they see who to blame will make that person switch of the phone within seconds
I think this is much to prefer above legalisation, it like handling animals, make the "right" choise the easy one, and all bad choises unpleasant - As soon as you behave acording to plan, you get the comfort of being left alone and not bothered.
...isn't the ring tones, or people using it in theatres (never had that problem), or even people talking louder. I'm sure they are annoying ring tones and people who can't comprehend "Please turn of your phones now" or people who go "HELLO?!?" and whatnot - it's just that they don't bug me (as much).
Two things really bug me:
1) You only know half of the conversation. So, naturally, the person that you can't hear is apparently the funniest person alive, and the person on the phone can't stop laughing, or then he'll act like he can insult you, and so he does, as if he forgets you can hear him, etc.
2) You have the person over and you're hanging out with your friends and you're all having a good time, and then someone's phone rings, and they go and leave the room, or they just stay there (even worse) but they just kinda drop out of the party and all. It's like being socially antisocial or something.
Just bugs me.
Not only is this (a) rude and (b) probably illegal (it is in the US, but (c) dangerous.
Dangerous you say. How in the world is blocking someones phone call harming anyone? Well, what if, when you're busy enjoying your peace & quiet, someone else nearby is without cell phone service. Now what if, that someone has a mission-critical position somehwere (Doctor, EMT, Fireman, or even a IT sys admin). Lets say there's a problem (Operation, car accident, house fire, or the latest varient of Netsky) and one of these people NEEDS to be contacted IMMEDIATELY. But of course, they can't. Why? Because in your selfishness, you decided that you can't be bothered with the minor inconvience of listening to someones conversation.
Look, I know cell phone users can be annoying, but is that any reason to punish the whole lot? We don't close down an entire highway just because someone is driving like an ass, do we? No, we try to be understanding of people and let it pass. In the same sense, we can't just block all cell phones in a certain area just because of one or two inconsiderate users.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
Here in CH you also have a 100 CHF fine for using your phone without a handsfree set in the car. And here in CH you also have people (like me) who spend quite a bit of time on the phone with other people at the same time as working on a laptop in a train or at a desk away from a fixed line where I could plug in a bulky headset. Not to mention those of us who don't like untangling cables all the time.
:)
So I appreciate the fact that you said "most of the people" instead of "all the people".
What's really funny is that a lot of people using cheap wired mikes end up holding the damn mouthpiece up to their face anyway while talking
Regardless, I haven't seen a single bluetooth headset where the battery doesn't go to shit after a few months of use--my Sony Ericcson, while it was useful during its (short) life, is now basically a fairly expensive bit of drawer-filling junk.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Why is it that when you go see a person and the phone starts ringing, they have to interrupt an important conversation to take of someone out of the blue?
When doing service calls a few years back, I remember going to this customer and the receptionist was too busy answering the phone. After 20 minutes of "one moment, I'll be right with you" I decided to use the guest phone and call her up asking for the person I wanted to see. Manners are just out the window where phones are concerned.
^D
That's why I'm barred from ever owning a cell phone.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's bad enough having the ring and the semi-shouted conversations, but the freaking "over" beep just kills me. People have no class at all using them in a restaurant. People wouldn't bring a CB radio...this is different?
I don't know about china, but I have some first hand experience with Eastern Europe. It's a different culture, all right.
To put it mildly, the main "cultural difference" is that there it's ok to be an annoying f*ck to those around you. If it doesn't involve cell phones, it involves talking way too loudly, having an extremely loud party in a densely packed block of flats, etc. And if someone doesn't like it, fsck them, it's not your problem. Extreme individualism was pretty much _the_ way to survive communism, and the poverty that came with it.
Now to get back to your point, methinks the same must apply to China, then.
Sorry, no matter how much I want to find it an excuse, there is _no_ bloody way to say that it ought to be socially acceptable to talk loudly on the phone in a movie theatre. I went there to see and _listen_ to the bloody movie, not to hear a dozen retards talking on their phone. I don't care if it's face-to-face or on the phone. Just shut the fsck up. I've paid to listen to the actors, not to you.
It's not overreacting, it's not shunning "an obnoxious show of money", it's merely asking that you show at least some minimal respect to your fellow humans. All I'm asking is that you let me watch the bloody movie, that's all.
So again: what's different in the West is that people have learned to give each other at least some minimal respect. Whole systems of social customs have existed for the sole reason of allowing people to live without getting on each other's nerves every two minutes.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If you'll notice, your regular landline phone supplies feedback of your voice through the earpiece. In the telephone industry this is called sidetone. I've never figured out why cell phones don't do that as well. Without the expected sidetone feedback, people tend to talk louder since they are not getting the feedback that they are accustomed to. "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
The bad part is the loud speakers that really dont need a phone in the first place.
I disagree -- I think I buy into the article pretty strongly, which says that volume is a minimal issue. I've tried paying attention to what irritates me about cell phones when someone is conversing on one, and my feelings click with what the study says.
The problem is that normally, we respond when someone says something to us. Our brain is cued by it.
The request-for-attention pattern this follows is someone saying something near us, followed by a period of silence as they wait for our response. As the period of silence increases, the likelihood that the message was directed at us (and we should respond and haven't) increases (hence the common pattern of someone saying something, stopping, and two seconds later someone looking up and saying "uh, did you say something to me" -- the "request for attention" sequence was sent).
We are pretty good about ignoring conversation -- sitting in a crowded lunchroom, it's easy to let background noise fade into the background.
The problem is that cell phone speakers follow our brain's "I am requesting your attention" almost exactly. So we're sitting here uncomfortably having someone grab our attention every two seconds or so. It's extremely disruptive when you're trying to think about something else. The only real fix is to start ignoring people that *are* trying to get our attention, which isn't great either.
I would say that the primary issue is that we need a sensory input that would allow us to determine when someone is talking on the phone. Then our brain can learn to distinguish between "cell phone speaker -- ignorable" and "someone trying to get your attention".
I think that a good solution would be to provide (surprise, more noise) a buzz, a sort of masked noise from the phone. When the person on the other end of the phone is talking, we get an unintelligable but audible buzz. It would be crucial that (a) the buzz not be an annoying annoying, (b) the buzz not be easily picked up by microphones (especially cell phones, so that feedback doesn't occur -- a filter is necessary), (c) that cell phone manufacturers standardize on such a buzz sound, so that people talking near each other on different cell phones don't interfere -- this would also allow people to more quickly learn to identify cell phones. I think that cell phone disruptiveness is largely a technical problem, not a social problem (though people talking in movie theaters still require a swift kick to the nuts).
May we never see th
Close. The problem is that your system requires the users to actively make an effort to do things properly. I don't see that ever working, simply because people are lazy, and social pressure should only be used as a last ditch problem.
The issue is that of the protocol.
When a cell phone is called, it should enter the ringing state. At that point, one of two buttons can be hit -- "accept -- pending talking" and "reject". Currently, I believe that people usually just turn off their phone to do a "reject", so that much functionality is in place. The protocol should allow a "accepted, but cannot talk yet state". At that point, the person with the cell can extricate themselves from whatever situation they're in, and can find a quiet place to handle the call. They'd then hit the "ready to talk" button.
This could interoperate with older, non-compliant phones by sending a text message (or brief audio clip saying "hold on") and then either terminating the call and calling back when "ready to talk" is hit, or simply opening the connection and leaving the phone speakers muted after the initial clip) until "ready to talk" is hit.
May we never see th
I have a different theory as to why people talk more loudly on cell phones.
On a regular telephone you can hear yourself coming out of the speaker end just a little bit. I don't know if this is because your voice is travelling through the hollow plastic, or if the telephone system is actually designed to do that. Either way, how loud you are hearing yourself compared to the other person helps to give you some feedback into how loudly you actually need to be talking.
On a cellphone, your voice just kind of travels off into nowhere. You don't hear yourself at all coming from the phone. Hence, you feel the need to talk louder, and louder, until you realize that , yes, you are talking loud enough.
This is what happens to me all the time. I always feel that little "urge" that I'm not talking loud enough, and so I sometimes try to actively talk below my comfort level of loudness.
I *am* a doctor, and I'll tell you, we *don't* use cell phones for anything "life-or-death". In fact, we're supposed to turn *OFF* our cell phones in the critical/intensive care units (where things are the MOST life-or-death), since they theoretically can interfere with the telemetry.
Furthermore, if I am currently responsible for patients that may need my care at a moment's notice, for life-threatening situations, I can tell you I would *NOT* be taking in a movie, or out at a restaurant. I only go out when I'm off-service, or my pager's signed out to someone else in/by the hospital.
BEEP!
YOU THERE?
BEEP!
WHERE YOU AT?
BEEP!
THE TRAIN!
BEEP!
WHERE?
BEEP!
THE TRAIN!!!
BEEP!
OH, THE TRAIN!
ARRRRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
And now, Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular are going to introduce it...
the rest is silence...