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Why Overheard Cell Phone Chats Are Annoying
__roo writes "American researchers think they have found the answer to the question of why overhearing cell phone chats are annoying. According to scientists at Cornell University, when only half of the conversation is overheard, it drains more attention and concentration than when overhearing two people talking. According to one researcher, 'We have less control to move away our attention from half a conversation (or halfalogue) than when listening to a dialogue. Since halfalogues really are more distracting and you can't tune them out, this could explain why people are irritated.' Their study will be published in the journal Psychological Science."
We already knew this...
people talk so damn loud on their cell phones, could it?
I find amusing. I can learn more about a person from being a creepy eavesdropper than most people can by conversing with that person.
I don't give a rats ass if some guy walking down the street needs to pick up a gallon of milk!
* They're usually talking louder than everyone else.
* They're not looking where they're walking.
* They're constantly shouting "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
* They're unable to talk to you because they're distracted by another conversation
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
So by that token it would make more sense to ban cell phone use by passengers in a car than by the driver?
but trying to fill in the missing part of the conversation from scratch. I couldn't give two shits about what he is going to say next, except when I'm on a train and someone answers a call the next thing they invariably say is "I'm on the twain!@!!"
*orders parts for GSM/3G jammer*
The obvious solution is for everyone to use speaker-phone.
===== will post for karma
It's because the people I overhear are inconsiderate jerks with nothing useful to say and half of the conversation is 50% more than I'm interested in hearing.
Oh really! She said what? ...
Well, damm. No way she could say that. ...
Did you try painting it with jello?
I was just talking about this with my friend yesterday. She said that someone on the bus just looks over at a woman on her cell phone, and that another rider gave her the dirtiest look until he spoke up and said, 'please put away your cell phone' My friend thought the guy was rude, but I thought he was justified. Cell phones seriously irritate me. That's one good thing about riding the subway.
I used to set in a cube next to a guy who was always talking on the phone in Chinese. It always gave me a headache, because of the double whammy of hearing half a conversation in a language that I don't understand.
...is trying to get information from someone while they're on the phone. You know how annoying it is at my part-time waiting gig trying to take an order from someone who won't put down the phone for the 10 seconds it takes to order ?
I'm pretty sure I remember coming across a news piece that said exactly this a good 10-20 years ago. The only thing I got out of this article is the word "halfalogue". Specifically, I added it to the List of Words I Must Never Utter. It sounds too much like Heffalump to ever be spoken in polite conversation. It joins other worthy contenders such as irregardless, paradigm, and "the cloud".
As heard at the supermarket.
Ring ring Hi hon ... Yeah just picking up some Cheerios ... Nope, haven't seen him ... You haven't either ... I hadn't heard about that ... Six of them, eh? Wow, he must have had raw thighs ... Really, I didn't know you could do that with motor oil ... Ignited you say ... Yeah, I think you have to wait 48 hours ... That's something she'll have to ask their insurance company ... Okay, home in a few.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We just need to spread out knuckle sandwiches around more generously.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I think the world is starting to reach a point where they are realizing that cellphones are not an unalloyed good. It's important to think of your cellphone, should you own one, as an extension of your wired phone rather than a walkie-talkie. That is, learn to respect the space around you, and your own space as well, by removing the battery from your cellphone when you are out and about.
Besides representing a constant, if not always unwelcome, intrusion into your everyday life, a cellphone left on continuously could represent as much as an oil tanker worth of energy usage. It also broadcasts EM waves everywhere -- if everybody in the world used their cellphones at the same time, imagine the impact.
We've come a long way, baby, but at the end of the day we have to figure out how to make technology serve us. Rather than the opposite. Which is us serving technology.
I run a bunch of labs at a community college lately (hey things are tough all over), and one thing I've noticed is people love to talk at the top of their voice when on the cell phone - that's annoying in a study hall.
So if I hear someone yapping away in a different tongue (one which I don't speak), then I won't find it annoying?
when
1) they are happening somewhere that a regular conversation shouldn't be (i.e. theatre while movie is playing)
2) they are happening while on the road, and the driver is noticeably swerving.
I often have a log when using my smartphone these days. Well, not with my iPhone.
Here's how to handle these people
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
http://www.youtube.com/v/rdmBxF7D6aU
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Stop replying this to every story about scientists finding something you thought you knew.
Everyone knew the Sun rotates around the earth.
You didn't know that. You may have thought it. Those are different things.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Paradigm is a valid word. It is just painfully misused and overused. The word first came into wide use after Kuhn wrote "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." In that book he argues that different branches of science go through successive paradigms which encompass their general framework for understanding their matter of study. The vast majority of science then occurs within these consensus attitudes. People now use paradigm in such a general way as to be close to meaningless. For example, people talk about technological paradigms which makes no sense in a Kuhnian framework. Similarly, people talk about paradigms in the humanities while Kuhn spent quite a bit of effort explaining and showing how the humanities don't form paradigms and undergo paradigm shifts in the same way at all, in that consensus never occurs for any overarching explanatory structure. Don't blame the word paradigm. Blame the people who use it as a buzzword.
Also, while I'm at it, I strongly recommend that any interested Slashdotter read Kuhn's book. He's an excellent writer who makes a strong case. I think he's incorrect but it is a very enjoyable read and one get's to learn a lot of neat historical facts that are often overlooked or not discussed in standard pop explanations of the history of science. He also wrote "The Copernican Revolution" which is also very readable and provides a very different view of the switch from geocentrism to heliocentrism then that which is often presented.
... Public Masturbation. Taboo or tubular? You decide.
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Surely half a monologue is a hemilogue?
If one must invent neologisms, then at least it should be done properly. It's the only thing people are going to remember from this 'research'.
Oh baloney. That's like saying "you're mind starts working harder trying to fill-in the "other" conversation that you can't hear so your mind works harder, leading to annoyance. That just means you are nosey.
Face it, some people just get annoyed very easily. I could care less if someone is talking on a cell phone.
Any double blind, well constructed study is science. Deal with it.
'Allo mate! Tim 'ere! Yeah, I've been off on 'oliday. Yeah.
Was down in Spain on me bike. Lovely weather, mate, but I was sayin' to the wife, we went up in the mountains on this mowtaway, three thaasand feet and it only bloody started snowin' IN SPAIN IN MAY!!!!
You know that snow and bikes don't mix, well, I was doin' 5 miles an owa...
Yeah, and them when we got daaahn to the plain, it TURNED TO RAIN mate!!!! Rain in Spain on the PLAIN!!!
Stick Men
Could it be that "those damn youngsters" have this one right?...
Both when it comes to being rather discrete and maintaining privacy.
One that hath name thou can not otter
It reminds me of the Non-Sequitur comic this week.
...and then they had to tazer her again!
I ride a commuter bus to and from Redmond,WA and Seattle, and on a daily basis I hear multiple cellphone conversations. No matter what language they are in, they piss me off. I plug my ears up with nice plug-style earphones, listen to music, and still hear the chattering. Message to all on the 545: STFU and wait until you are off the bus to chatter constantly. It's got less to do with language in my case, but you get the picture.
I knew it, I'll go one bit further than their study goes. It's because your mind tries to fill the gaps in the conversation. It's not simply because you only hear one side of the conversation that it disrupts your concentration, but specifically, your mind is busy trying to imagine what's going on on the other end of the call.
I believe when you hear someone speak (especially if they ask a question) and then pause for a few seconds, you realize they're waiting for a response. If they were talking to someone else, presumably you'd hear the response right away. But because there's no response, you reflexively think they're talking to someone who doesn't realize they're being talked to. Since you yourself didn't think they were talking to you, that automatically includes YOU. So you reflexively check to see if that's true, getting your attention.
In other words, the delay from the other side of the conversation is what gets your attention reflexively.
It even sounds reasonable.
Proof?
Oh, riiiiiiiiight. You have none. Until then, it what scientists like to call a (in this case, poor) "Hypothesis".
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
I think their conclusions are crap. That was one of Bob Newhart's main routines to do the one-sided phone call. Funny and not annoying at all.
The researchers have identified that a "halfalogue" is confusing, but I'd like to share another aspect I did not see addressed in the article. It's not just what is being said, it's also how it's being said.
In polite conversation there is a protocol, if you will, of how I speak to someone else. Tone of voice, intonation, and the like provide information in addition to the words that I use. When I have a question and ask someone for an answer, there's a change in the tone of my voice at the end and then a pause while I await the other person's answer. Kind of an out-of-band signaling system.
To complicate matters, there are times when I've daydreamed while someone was talking to me, and then all of a sudden I realize that I have been asked a question and they are waiting for my answer.
So, when I'm only hearing part of a conversation, and then there's this ... pause ... there's a part of me that thinks "OMG, did I zone out and they are waiting for me to respond?" Since I do NOT hear the other side of the conversation, I get confusing inputs. Audio inputs suggest I should say something; visual inputs say it's not for me.
I have this idea for making cell phone conversations private in public places. Simply, a glass box with a door on it that you can step into to make phone calls. I will call it a ...... phone booth.....
I can put them everywhere but need money to get started - paypal me some $$ to get in on this killer deal!
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
Seems to me this applies to any phone conversation, not just cell phones. Hearing half of a loud conversation at the desk next to you is really no less annoying than if they're using a cell phone. Just with cell phones, I can't leave that problem at the office anymore.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
I tend not to care if they're not speaking English (or a language that I speak). does that make me a nosy motherfucker?
anybody else experience the same?
Perhaps a monologue or even a demilogue but really a halfalogue?
They don't bother me in the least bit, and if I'm in a public place, the street, a bus, or a train, I expect there to be noise.
Something for you to look up definition of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic
...is trying to get information from someone while they're on the phone. You know how annoying it is at my part-time waiting gig trying to take an order from someone who won't put down the phone for the 10 seconds it takes to order ?
...people who start their message in the subject field, breaking the flow and breaking quotes.
Any double blind, well constructed study is science. Deal with it.
No, this is not enough to have science. What prediction can a psychologist make?
Try muscling in on the convo, ask for clarifications on the details, ask for to put on speakerphone, etc.
Hemilogue?
Semilogue?
Rob Malda's boner is a hemi-demi-semi-log?
Funny how you come to a site for geeks (where there will be a lot of science news), just to post how useless science is?
Nice one.
How's it going in your world of always knowing what science is studying? Maybe you can tell the world how to cure cancer or get to Mars. Since you already knew the results of a scientific study before it was conducted?
Your sig really does tell everyone a lot about what goes on between your ears.
My old Dodge Neon had a Semi-hemi...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Scientologist shill
This one comes to mind.
Dear Sir
Please find attached our proposal for the research project "Post facto rationalisation of the value of innovation".
The human ethics application is also attached. Although we will be largely following the standard protocols for using freshman Psychology students as experimental subjects, we have requested permission to exclude subjects for whom "640kB of petrified hot grits in a Beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans" induces a sphincter contraction.
Yours,
R.E. Searcher, PhD
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
Psychology shill...
Fortunately, I can know something without submitting it to a rigorous scientific study.
If you want to be completely anal about it, why don't you prove to me that there was actually a study, and that the reported study isn't just a hoax? I mean, if it takes some scientific hoops to jump through to pass from the realm of thought into actual knowledge, not simply of repeated personal observation, then why should my observation of this report be any less subject to testing? You cannot call it knowledge, either, until you have studied the study to verify it's findings personally. And for the hell of it, repeat the experiment to confirm it. It's the only way to be sure that it's knowledge.
Or can you just simply accept that a report on an alleged* study is less significant, to the volume of knowledge I store, than my own experience is?
In the mean time, you're not advancing the scientific method, just the pretentious prick method.
* Not actually questioning the conduct of the study, or lack thereof.
Next, I think a study on why "halfalogue" is an annoying 'word' is in order.
Sounds like most /. posts to me.
I don't think it means what you think it means...
I believe that you are confusing science with fortunetelling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.[1] As knowledge has increased, some methods have proved more reliable than others, and today the scientific method is the standard for science. It includes the use of careful observation, experiment, measurement, mathematics, and replication -- to be considered a science, a body of knowledge must stand up to repeated testing by independent observers. The use of the scientific method to make new discoveries is called scientific research, and the people who carry out this research are called scientists.[2][3] This article focuses on science in the more restricted sense, what is sometimes called experimental science. Applied science, or engineering, is the practical application of scientific knowledge.
A scientific hypothesis is an educated guess about the nature of the universe, a scientific theory is a hypothesis which has been confirmed by repeated observation and measurement. Scientific theories are usually given mathematical form, and are always subject to refutation if future experiments contradict them.
In the modern world, scientific research is a major activity in all developed nations, and scientists are expected to publish their discoveries in refereed journals, scientific periodicals where referees check the facts in an article before it is published. Even after publication, new scientific ideas are not generally accepted until the work has been replicated.
Scientific literacy is the ability of the general population to understand the basic concepts related to science.
Also...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology
Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring underlying physiological and neurological processes.
Psychologists study such topics as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also consider the unconscious mind.a Experimental psychologists try to determine causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, clinical psychologists sometimes rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques.
Psychological knowledge is applied to various spheres of human activity, including the family, education, employment, and the treatment of mental health problems, as well as wider historical dimensions such as the attainment of greatness in fields such as politics, music, art, and literature.[1] Psychology includes many diverse sub-fields, such as developmental psychology, sport psychology, health psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, media psychology, legal psychology, and forensic psychology. Psychology incorporates research from the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities.
The word psychology literally means, "study of the soul".[2] It derives from Ancient Greek: "" (psych, meaning "breath", "spirit", or "soul"); and "-" (-logia, translated as "study of").[2] The term was probably coined in the mid-16th century, and in the following century it also came to mean, "study of the mind". In 1895, the term was used for the first recorded time in reference to behavior.[2]
it's the same when you listen tv in a language you don't really understand. You hear the first word, you struggle to understand it, you hear the next one, your brain tries to understand that, then it tries to understand the two word expression, then the next word comes, you understand it but you can't get the meaning out... Frustration builds quick.
So we knew it, I experienced it, then an "internet study" explain it to me. I guess this is another face of the same thing.
---
@@### are $##$$ $$### now!
Solution: Join in their conversation and make comments on what they're saying...
You are not taking into account my experiences.
In my experiences, some random guy being stupidly sarcastic about the value of a study is a total goddamn idiot, who is questioning the validity, often, of the necessity of science itself in some way.
Furthermore, given a scenario, I would blindly (because you are otherwise correct in your rationalizations, even though its a strange assertion) go with a scientist over some random idiot on slashdot every time.
I don't think anyone would disagree with that - you can argue yourself into semantic hell otherwise. Meanwhile, us smart people will be writing things down so we can build on them, realizing that the implications of any given study may not be imminently evident.
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
This. I've been thinking the same thing for about 10 years now. Congratulations to these researchers for their extraordinarily firm grasp of the painfully obvious.
You do realize that your comment is akin to Charlie Manson's fan calling Stephen Hawking a physics shill?
It has about as much merit AND relevance.
Though I find the speakerphone conversations (which you can hear the tinny voice of the other person) just as annoying.
SCIENTOLOGIST SPOTTED.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I always thought overhearing a cell conversation was annoying because the person on the cell changed their voice to a self-important tone.
Seriously, remember the good old days of hearing your brother and sister yack on the home phone? Nobody cared. But, it's when you're out in public and these guys are talking with loud, self-important voices that it becomes annoying.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
I have anecdotal evidence it works with Humvees for the Right wingers. My friend bought one recently dirt cheap at a police auction (like 10k) and started driving it around town on the weekends when he was running errands. He lives in a town that is 5 miles in diameter, so don't bitch about his gas usage. He said he had never been hit on by a girl after he left college, well that is until he started parking that beast in the Walmart parking lot on a weekend, women on different occasions would actually come up to him in the store and start randomly starting conversations about politics assuming he was a Republican or something.
When I go back to visit my Mom and drive her old Porsche around town I notice I get a lot more attention as well. Really, this is not that bad way of selecting a mate when you think about it. Its not that they are attracted to men with a guitar, Humvee or Porsche per se, they are attracted to the idea of being seen as a woman with a man who has those things. What gets women going is not the material items themselves but how those items are perceived by others, esp other women in relationships I've noticed.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
If the suggested theory (using the term at its loosest possible fitting) is correct, it would have been noticed not long after "Watson, come here, I need you." It wasn't.
What people found most annoying at first, and some still do, is the violation of accepted protocol of interpersonal communication. When someone near you starts to talk out loud, it had always been a safe bet that they were talking to you. You redirect your attention and prepare to interact. Then you find out they weren't talking to you, may not even be aware of your existence, but there you are standing in front of them feeling like you've been made a fool of (or made of fool of yourself by starting to talk back). And It's All Their Fault. After a decade and more of experiencing it, fewer are bothered, and half a generation has been raised on a different context and can't understand why there was even a problem.
Another effect comes from violation of personal space (there's an auditory version as well as a visual-spatial). If someone invades your space without acknowledging you so they can apologize or get permission or whatever, it's a nonverbal communication version of a slap in the face. And as for failing to acknowledge you, when someone fails to consider whether you want to hear whatever it is they're blabbering about and fills your hearing space with talking far louder than is needed (especially considering they're not talking to anyone in sight), they're making an implied statement that if it bothers you, too fucking bad for you.
There are even some people who make a point of talking louder than they would otherwise because they want you to know they think they're important and you're not. At first, when only the rich could afford them, they made a point of doing this in restaurants and other places, even repeatedly interrupting a conversation with you or someone else to 'take a call'. There were more than a few comedy acts and sitcoms that jabbed at those people by emphasizing the few but true instances of people faking calls to do this in others' presence. The same happens now, but more often with people who couldn't afford to keep their phone on but don't want you to know that.
A one-liner version of this all could be "look at me not talking to you".
But as I said, with the passing years most people who were bothered have gotten used to it, and many more have come of age around it and have never been bothered.
Then again there are those few, those oh so unhappy few, who have not and will probably never get used to it and will always be bothered. To those I say, cheer up: I'm working on a version of the cell phone signal blocking device that detects their signal and sends out interference. But rather than just interference, it'll turn on a tesla coil and broadcast thousands of volts through that little piece of hellspawn technology frying the little shitbox as well as blowing their inner ear through their brain and out the other ear hole, and then we can jump up and say "LET'S SEE YOU SAY 'WHAT'S UP' WHILE LOOKING AT ME BUT THEN WHEN I START TO ANSWER YOU IT TURNS OUT YOU'RE NOT TALKING TO ME, NOW, YOU FUCKING BRAIN DEAD FREAK!"
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
So, for next weeks amazingly useful research topic, shall we look for a cure for cancer?
No lets try to find out how many fruit pastels it takes to choke a kestrel instead. Oh that ones already been done?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_fruit_pastilles_will_it_take_to_choke_a_kestrel
Because I feel someone else should be telling me I should talk on a phone in a public place I'm narcissistic?
Wow. On a couple of levels, that sentence is worrisome. With this type of creep, grammar is one of the first indications that something is wrong. Kind of a, "put food on your family" moment.
Seriously. Stop posting for the night, take a deep breath, and swallow your damned pills.
Normally I advise people to get off anti-depressants, but in some cases it keeps the rest of us safe.
-FL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRWRJtIY5to
With apologies to Tennyson
Halfalogue, halfalogue, halfalogue onward
All on the light rail of death rode the 600
Forward the worker drones!
Go for the new cell phones!
Onto the light rail of death rode the 600
Forward the worker drones!
Was there a man with groans!
Not though the worker knew someone had blundered
Theirs is not to make reply,
Theirs is not to reason why,
Theirs is to be passersby
Onto the light rail of death rode the 600
Cell phones to the right of them
Cell phones to the left of them
Cell phones in front of them, chatted and thundered
Stormed at with call and cell
Calmly they bore it well
Into the buzz of death
Into the talk of hell
Rode the 600
Flashed all their teeth so bare
Flashed with a deadly glare
Killing all the callers there
Taking on a rabble
while all the wondered
plunged in the 3g waves
plunged till they found their graves
Texter and talker
reeled from the workers' raves
shattered and sundered
They rode back, but not, not the 600
Cell phones to the right of them
cell phones to the left of them
Cell phones behind them, chatted and thundered
stormed at with call and cell
while train and worker fell
They who had fought so well
Came through the buzz of death
back from the talk of hell
All that was left of them
left of 600
When can their glory fade!
Oh the attack they made!
All the world wondered
Honor their manners raid
Honor the workers' trade
Noble 600
This is a dupe from two years ago.
Is there such a word? If a dialogue is two people talking, then isn't half a dialogue a monologue?
It took SCIENTISTS to explain common-fucking-sense? I'm glad it wasn't my tax dollars that paid for that study.
how is babby formed?
I'm annoyed that some self-important pricks talk even louder on their cell phones just so other people can see how important they think they are.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Almost off topic, but why are the estimated numbers of cell phone subscribers coming from the CIA? It seems an odd source.
That's the exact concept upon which Bob Newhart built his entire career.
Half of a dialogue should be a monologue, not a halfalogue. Or, to avoid the conflict with the usual definition of monologue, maybe a unilogue?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xut__-uXG8U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEO05pidOMA&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKTkClzUsU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyUrGfHt2qM
ad infinitum...
HELLO! WHAT? I'M IN A ...
Occasionally, I have overheard both sides of a cellphone conversation, even when they are not using the speaker phone feature. One time, I found myself unable to resist the urge to add my two cents worth to what the person on the other end was saying. So I leaned over and briefly added what I knew about the subject.
I have also noticed the much the same thing in how sound passes through the walls in Doctor's offices. I have occasionally overheard portions of what was being said between the doctor and patient in the next examination room. Several years ago, I heard two nurses down the hall wondering where the telephone book was. I could see that it was laying on a table near me, so I opened the door and walked down the hall and handed the telephone book to the nurse.
I KNOW, what a jackass
...
...
...
...
...
...
I totally agree, but I thin...
You're completely correct!
Yeah?
You did what with her?!?!
Oh, wait, you know what, the slashdot crowd is glaring, I'll call you back.
You too.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
No, this is not enough to have science.
Yes, it is. Look up "Science" if you want to know more.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
...than listening to a stupid conversation, is listening to half of a stupid conversation.
What's that Bob? You say don't agree with this study because of that one part of the methodology?
Hm, really? No, I see, Bob; you're right, many people would tend to think that if they hadn't looked at the research closely. But what about that other problem you mentioned?
Actually, that's another interesting point about cell phone conversations you've got there, Bob. I'm not sure I completely agree with it, but I concede that it definitely has implications here and should be researched further.
Oh really, Bob? That's hilarious. Oh yeah, I've had that happen to me too. Ha! I know just how you feel. Yes, I agree it's really irritating, I can't imagine anything that would be more irritating, other than hearing one side of a conversation!
It has nothing to do with that stuff. Want reasons? Ill give you real reasons.
1- They always talk so much damn louder than everyone else.
2- Alot of people act like an arrogant asshole that thinks everyone wants to hear and think they look cool with their bluetooth permanently stuck in their ear.
3- They dont watch what the hell they are doing or where they are going. And they dont care if they are in your way because they are on a phonecall so important they have to stand around in a store to take it.
4- If your trying to talk to them or something they dont pay attention.
5- People that walk around stores or sit in restaraunts and talk on their phone for longer than 30 seconds tend to be self important assholes that are very inconsiderate of anyone else around them.
6- It really freaking pisses off people when you use a damn cell phone in a movie, no one paid to hear you talk. Even texters in a movie, I dont give a shit how well you cover it everyone behind you can see that damn light like staring into a trucks headlights.
7- Ringers and worse yet peoples stupid damn ringtones going off around is also damned annoying.
People talking on cellphones tend to carry their voices better than two people having a conversation amongst themselves in public. Anytime I answer the phone in public, I make a distinct effort to lower my voice, and if possible find a suitably private area, for the sole reason that I don't want to annoy the crap out of people I don't know just because I'm talking on the phone. I think if people would chat at the same volume on the phone as they do in person, it wouldn't be annoying to anyone.
It also seems like people tend to tune out the fact that people are around them. This might somewhat explain the volume increase, but it also means that they seem to feel comfortable talking about more intimate topics. Most people would be somewhat guarded about information about where and when their kids will be, phone numbers, etc.. but I hear people blurt information out loudly enough for everyone within 30 feet to clearly make it out.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Hey pal, don't mess with me. I took an epistemology class in college.
You may think there's a difference between thinking and knowing, but I know there isn't.
In some conversations like between an employee and a manager, or a wife and husband, one half of the dialogue is the complete dialogue. IOW monologue == dialogue. So do they annoy less?
Please don't use that word ever again.
I think the principal conflict is that it seems like the other person is talking to you and your sense of social obligation keeps getting drawn toward the talker. That doesn't happen if the listener is present and you know you don't have to interact with the speaker. This is particularly powerful when they're on a headset that you don't notice and you haven't yet been cued that they're on the phone.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Yeah, that's MUCH worse than being a Discordian.
One sided phone conversations were not irritating when Bob Newheart had them.
When I'm trying to read on the train, it is just torture to hear someone talking on the phone. I already have ADD which makes it doubly hard to try to focus on what I am reading. I have seriously considered investing in a cell phone jammer to preserve my sanity (I'd only use it for one minute bursts). Some people are completely unaware of how their behavior affects others.
That a dog will salivate when you ring a bell.
Pavlov...
Unexpect the expected!
if it has something to do with not knowing if the conversation is directed at oneself or not.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
SCIENTOLOGIST SPOTTED.
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E pluribus sanguis
Yeah, that's MUCH worse than being a Discordian.
Yes, yes it is.
Fortunately, I can know something without submitting it to a rigorous scientific study.
Perhaps it comes down to the definition of know, but I really don't think I can know anything per se. I can have "very strong confidence" in something, and will treat it as "true" until something more compelling comes along. If that's your definition of "know" (which seems reasonable and I have no beef with that), then I'm afraid I have to agree with the GP. While I certainly can assume something without a study being done, the study gives me the extra confidence to bump it up to the very strong confidence level.
Blind faith that one's assumptions are correct is what led us in to the mess of a world we're in right now...
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Half a dialogue = monologue, surely?
When I'm lucky enough to be next to a cell-yakking-driver at a light with their window down, my very powerful stereo system gets cranked way up! :-D
Fortunately, I can know something without submitting it to a rigorous scientific study.
Oh, a "God" believer, eh?
say what you want, as loud as you want it (within reason) wherever you want*, for as long as you want. Everyone else in the world is too busy living their lives to care.
*it's considered quite polite by those you sit next to when you tell the caller, 'I'm in a movie, I can't talk now." if your phone rings in the theatre.
In my day we simply dealt with annoying customers by messing with their food. Kids these days, no imagination.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Sheesh. Could we not put our resources to better use? Did we actually need scientific proof to prove this?
Related YT link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdmBxF7D6aU
This should be the solution for all violations of this study ;)
I must share with you my proposal for Cell Phone Booths to be installed in restaurants, public places, etc.
They work just like old-fashioned phone booths, except you bring your own phone.
It can be left to the proprietor to post signs accordingly.
The weird thing is how many times it's trivial for you to determine what the other half is. Couldn't tell you how many times my wife has hung up the phone and started to explain what she'd just learned, but I'd already picked up 95% of the details and don't really need filled in.
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Is at least be creative in your phone conversations.
For example, when answering a call on my phone in a public place, always start the conversation with "Is this a secure line?"
Regardless as to whether you then go on talking about the weather or reading out your shopping list, casual eavesdroppers will find it gripping and won't complain.
Jolyon
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Complaining about cell phone conversations is so 90s. It was a way to try to knock early adopters (i.e. - rich folk) down a peg by saying, "So what if you can afford a cell phone? They're annoying anyway". Then as prices dropped, more people realized they could join this "elite" group. Now the phones are a dime a dozen and everybody has one, yet this bullshit argument still hangs around.
It's kind of funny that the people annoyed by them are also the same ones using them, yet it is everyone else that is the problem.
Why is it that in the 1970s/80s, as I was growing up, I heard my mother talk on the land-based phone all the time yet, I was never annoyed by it? I only ever heard her side of the conversation and sometimes I didn't even know who she was talking to. Even as I sit here at my desk at work typing this paragraph, there are people all around me with land-line phones on their desks. I only ever get to hear their side of the conversation when they are on the phone. Should I pretend that I am annoyed by it? Oh wait, no, I forgot this bullshit argument only applies to cell phones.
Instead of parroting a bullshit argument, I wish people would STFU and learn to think for themselves.
I didn't RTFA but, it sounds like they are just assuming that listening to one's cell phone conversation is annoying and basing a study around trying to determine why. At the very least, did they point to a study that shows the majority of the population actually find them annoying in the first place?
Personally, I find it even more annoying when someone's walking around with a call on speakerphone, or using their phone like a walkie-talkie... Why do you suppose that is?
I mean, apart from the fact that I'm slowly turning into a grumpy old man.
Bow-ties are cool.
be a monologue?
might we venture to call half of a dialog a monolog?
We admit that we're full of shit - in fact, that's the whole point.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Honestly it was intended as a funny comment, not as a serious comment. I really don't quite follow the importance of this particular bit of research other than to say that it's interesting how the ability to focus on two sides of a conversation makes it easier to ignore the conversation.
I make it a habit to leave the room where others are concentrating if I'll be on the phone, as I don't want to interrupt them. By the same token, if my coworkers are working on something, and someone comes up to talk at my desk, I'll usually suggest we go out of the area. (Yeah, I do work in a room of cubes, but it's not that bad, all things considered... I happen to know that the renovations are going on in the area next door to give us our individual offices. I'm coping.)
So my point being: My comment wasn't serious. I figured people on this site had the intelligence to figure that out. It wasn't particularly funny. It wasn't particularly trollish either. Overrated I'll agree with.
As for getting to Mars, I'ld say let it be private industry what does that. As for cancer, can we start eating right and quit with all the numerous quantities of chemicals that we ingest? Something tells me eating healthy food grown in healthy ways cooked fresh without the application of preservatives (continue inserting ill side effects of factory produced food with shelf lives longer than one week) would present us with less cases of cancer in society as a whole**. I don't know, I'm content to deal with a few issues in life to have the level of comfort that we decadent Westerners call an average life.
**We can't discount all the other places in our lives that cause us to be bombarded with industrial chemicals, like that "new car" smell, that's really the exhalation of chemicals from the manufacturing process. Boy don't plastics smell good? They're loaded with carcinogens (see baby bottle plastics concerns for a single example out of many).
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Now, I realize my comment was really not funny, and halfhearted, but what was it you were asking me again? I imagine we would get along right nicely in polite society, if you didn't take one snarky comment and turn it into a hatefest.
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Just because I like to bite, and someone below said something similar, would I be the total goddamn idiot you were referring to for making a halfassed comment about scientists studying something that we all take for granted? (At least, everyone I (personally) know takes it for granted that listening to a phone call from one side is worse than most other forms of background noise)
Or were you referring to total goddamn idiots in general on slashdot?
Just curious.
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There is no point to Discordianism or Scientology. Well, other than the pathetic little sense of self-importance that it provides to losers like yourself.
Why is a mouse when it spins?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Bone conduction headphones + noise canceling circuits + microphone + Bluetooth = a 4.5 cubic-inch room in which to hold your private phone conversation. You won't shout inside your own skull, you might drown out the other voices :)
For fuck's sake...