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."

Comments

Re:interesting research

[geekoid]

Well if it irritates YOU, then it shouldn't be allowed~

Dumb ass.

No matter what language...

[polyomninym]

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.

Re:Paying researchers

[Redlazer]

That's pretty interesting.

It even sounds reasonable.

Proof?

Oh, riiiiiiiiight. You have none. Until then, it what scientists like to call a (in this case, poor) "Hypothesis".

Re:Paying researchers

[Redlazer]

You would have a point if everyone else in the world was you.

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.