Holy cow, that is one of my major annoyances. My oldest does that all the time. We’ll be watching a movie and she will decide she needs to hold a phone call with somebody ON SPEAKER. Drives me nuts.
I also had a nephew who would feel the need to watch stupid Facebook videos at FULL VOLUME while the other five of us in the house were trying to watch a movie/carry on a conversation… rude as hell.
I have no idea. Never used video chat myself, and never asked to see their screens. I often see people speaking into their phones, while holding them in front of their faces/mouths, and the other person is on speaker. Reminds me of the older phones that were essentially like walkie-talkies - seemed like they were always on speaker, and there would be an audible sound between speakers. Always thought they were holding them to speak directly at the - never considered that they might be taking images of their face.
Why would someone use video chat - especially if one party in in a public place? Sure I think it is rude, but moreso, I just can’t understand the mindset.
Can’t speak for the departed Mr. Clemons. But I generally have no interest in hearing one OR both sides of someone else’s phone conversation. ISTM, tho, that there are aspects of a one-sided conversation that make it more distracting than a binary conversation, which can slip into the background as a continuous murmur. As opposed to isolated statements, followed by pauses, which might attract your attention more, requiring more effort to ignore.
It also seems as tho many (not all) people speak more loudly when using their phones, or at least they project their words in a different direction, than if they were speaking to an individual who was physically present and within comfortable conversational distance. I think the “loudspeak” is especially common when people use speaker phones.
Well, it’s not mandatory. One of them is my current dating interest and he’s in another city. The other is a friend of mine who always seems to want to show me what he’s done to his apartment and the current art or craft projects he’s working on.
While I’m not crazy about bus passengers using their phones, I accept it as part of normal life and not that offensive. After all, they are not interrupting an activity. You are just sitting there, waiting to get off at your stop.
Bus drivers should never be on their cell phones, and passengers should be quiet enough to not both the other passengers or the driver. Especially the driver.
Eh, I don’t want to eavesdrop, especially since phone conversations that I hear are sometimes in languages I don’t understand. I just find the noise of any phone conversation annoying - for reasons others have mentioned above, and also because I have sensory issues and that’s one of the sounds that sets me off.
Sometimes when annoyed by video chat in public places, I spitefully wonder what would happen if I went behind the person so that I was visible in the video chat, and made funny faces. Tempting, but it wouldn’t be very polite of me. :rolleyes:
Preach on! I always say I have a phone for my convenience, not somebody else’s…although I’m there for someone whose needs to reach me are crucial. Always quiet ( vibrate ) too. The noise pollution caused by the constant stream of various notification tones is one of the scourges of modern life. The latest one ( that I’ve heard so far ) is that infernally obnoxious “honka-honka” of a squeeze bulb horn…the “honks” being similar to geese’s. To have to be subjected to somebody having a 20 minute text “conversation” incites me to near violence.
I just checked my Android phone and it doesn’t seem to have the ability to set custom settings (ringtone, vibrate only) to each contact or group. Can’t believe that my old '90’s phones had this capability and it’s no longer there. “There should be an app for that.”
Googled and it seems my cheap Galaxy J3 doesn’t support (at least I can’t find the settings) custom ringtones for contacts or text messages, but my even cheaper Android phone does.
If your phone does allow custom settings, please use it and no more “I don’t know if it’s important or not!”
Since I’m apparently so out of touch re: modern technology, I thought I’d seek input on another cellphone situation.
We’ve had a couple of instances lately when invited guests have recorded things in our house. As a rule, we would prefer that people not do so. How would you deal with such situations?
In the first instance, a 60-ish friend wanted us to play a password-like game, where she held her phone to her forehead, and the others tried to get her to guess the word displayed on her phone. After a round or 2, she inadvertently hit a “playback” button. We had had no idea that our participation in this game was being recorded. Some people had been drinking, and some persons might have said/done things they did not want recorded and possibly shared on the internet.
Last night, we hosted a group of family members. I think 11 adults and 2 kids. At one point, a few of us played carols on musical instruments while the others sang. My wife is VERY self conscious about her ability (I think she is a fine fiddler, but she is overly critical of her ability to play in public.) It was a BIG deal for her to be willing to play - even in front of family, and was hoping the experience would help her confidence playing out in more situations. When we started, one guest - also in her 60s (the mother of a niece’s husband - someone we had never met before), started filming us on her phone. When we noticed, we asked her not to. I think she said something like “Of course - that is reasonable in your own home.” But honestly, I was paying more attention to playing music. So we played several carols and everyone seemed to have fun. Afterwards, this woman was messing around on her phone, and played a recording of at least one song. She said she filmed the singers, not the musicians. Well - yeah, but you can sure hear the music as well. Long story short, my wife was very bothered by this, thinks she sounded horrible, vows she will NEVER play in public again, etc.
So what would you have done at that point? To make things more fun, we’re seeing the whole group again on x-mas.
In retrospect, I wish I had told her that we had requested that she not record, and asked her to delete and not share the recording. Given the woman’s actions with her phone, I would bet good money that she has already posted it on Facebook.
In my mind, audio/video recordings are quite a step beyond still images. WHILE I AM IN MY HOME I really do not like to worry whether everything I say or how I look might even inadvertently be recorded and shared digitally.
Maybe I just need to become a hermit! :dubious:
I don’t know the “right” way to handle that. With my group of friends, I’d take the offending party aside and say, “what the fuck, man? My gf doesn’t want to be video’d” and we’d be cool.
I record video frequently, but I always ask permission, unless it’s at a festival or some other large public gathering.
Wow. Mostly, if someone records, I shrug. In the first case, the person was clearly hiding the fact that she’d been recording anything, in a situation where there was no reasonable expectation of being recorded.
In the second one - Oh, My Gawd what a whiny entitled bitch. “I was only filming the singers” = self-entitled-bitch-ese for “I want to record the whole thing but you jerks said I couldn’t film the player so I’m going to skirt that because my self-entitled-bitch-self’s right to film EVERYTHING is far more important than your thin-skinned whiny-ass’s right to privacy, so I’m gonna pretend to play along while doing everything I can to do what I want and fuck you”. I would suggest that the niece speak to her mother in law. And never allow this person in your house again. If you have to, you might want to load a lot of steel ball-bearings in all the bathroom cabinets (and some hidden cameras) as clearly she has no inkling of privacy.
During synagogue services, 3 times a day, phone stays on buzz and in my pocket. Same when I’m at the movies. Same if I’m out visiting someone, or eating out with someone. I’m not one to rush to see my phone every time it makes a noise. In fact, I often keep it on buzz even at home, because it drives my wife crazy that I won’t check the phone right away every time it makes a noise of some kind.
I grew up in a family that had discussions around the dinner table and my wife grew up in a family that watched TV while eating.
It’s continued in that I believe there really isn’t anything that can’t wait for 20 minutes while we eat or longer if we’re out with friends. She is used to keeping track of parallel events.
Yes, it annoys the hell out of me and she doesn’t see the problem. There will be a person on Mars before this is resolved.
We were talking about this very thread this evening while enjoying Christmas dinner with friends. They were horrified at the entitled woman who recorded “the singers only” after being asked not to record.
My phone happened to be sitting on the table, face-down, because it had been in my pocket and it was uncomfortable there. It remained there, until some topic or other came up (it was whether Borax was alkaline or acidic; yeah, we talk about weird stuff over dinner!) - and we looked it up right then and there. As such, I think it enhanced the discussion - then it was put back down and ignored.
This, to me, is an appropriate use of such a device when socializing.
We don’t see our friends nearly often enough. I don’t want to waste time on a phone with not-here people.