I feel like this phenomena started around 2005 when those Nextel phones with “walkie-talkie” mode were super popular, especially with construction and work crews. Highly annoying with all the chip chirping and speakerphone usage, but it gave a certain air of “busy and important” that caught on with a certain set and carried on after smartphones debuted.
So long as they are not on speaker, I could not care how they hold it. If they are on speaker - they should be shot.
Nope. It’s the real thing.
Which is why I do as @Icarus suggests and join right in. I’m doing a public service for the unsuspecting victim at the other end. Just a couple of well-chosen sentences and they usually get the idea.
Ditto for the people who aren’t using a speakerphone but are bellowing into their device. Just start talking to them as if they are addressing you and very soon they’ll be behaving differently.
For sure that is an issue. Finding exactly where the ear output is on a phone is a PITA; it’s a very small target that must align closely with your earhole. Or at least that’s so with my phone and ear. I don’t find nearly as much issue with them hearing me when I’m talking with the ear parts aligned.
IMO the larger issue with the phone out flat in front of the face is that in order to hear, they’ve switched to speakerphone from the normal ear-outlet mode. So now they’re audible for 10 feet around.
I think a loud shout of
Wow man, did you see that guy talkin’ on the phone who just shit all over himself and the floor??1! That smells insanely bad!!1! Somethin’ wrong with that dude for sure!
The real right answer to these vexations is of course is Bluetooth earbuds or a headset. No need to speak up, much less shout; no problem hearing; no need to even hold the phone - just leave it in your pocket or purse and call, answer, or hang up with a tap at your ear.
I mean, it’s weird, because I agree with you, and yet two people could be having that same conversation in the elevator next to me, rather than on the phone, and it’s slightly less annoying. (gross content aside)
I share the OP’s frustration. I see this on public transit here quite often, usually with a lot of bellowing into the speaker to the irritation of everyone else on the streetcar. When I was in Paris a couple of years ago, I was trapped on a footpath near the Eiffel Tower, stuck behind someone who was not only have a coversation on his speakerphone at Laibach-concert-volume, he was also joyously, emphatically, gesticulating to the point where it practically wasn’t safe to walk past him. Into the effing Seine with this guy and his ilk, I felt.
You’d think so, and yet….
You’re absolutely right! I have never once seen a wolf or even a coyote having a loud public phone conversation.
The solution, of course, is not to have phone conversations in public. If I need to consult with someone while I’m in a store, I’ll text. If I want to talk, I’ll call them back after I’m out of there.
People talk on phones?
Wow!
I need to get out more.
In a similar vein I note that many cars broadcast the Bluetooth phone conversations within to the public. This is because they use the speakers in the door and that particular car has poor insulation behind the speaker. I was walking to the store once and this woman’s conversation was so distinct I heard it from several cars back until I had passed her and was heading to the store. She got out of her car right then and I awkwardly tried to explain to her that her car did this and that she was probably not aware of it.
She snarked back, “Oh, really? What were we talking about?” I replied, “you and your Mom were planning a birthday party for someone”. Her jaw dropped and she hustled off like I had done some kind of a magic trick.
You can only hear the person in the car, not the voice of the other person on the phone.
Sure, holding it exactly like a landline phone doesn’t work. But I find I can hold the phone diagonally with the edge closer to the side of my face, getting my mouth as close as I can to the mic while having the speaker next to my ear. The screen does face mostly behind me.
That said, if I’m anywhere where I can do so without issue, I use speakerphone, same as I did back with portable phones. Nowadays, I may even use a Bluetooth speaker because the audio quality is much better than my phone’s speakers, making it easier to understand people (I lost my Bluetooth earphones in the move.)
It really is a better experience for me and the other person on the call. But I know it isn’t for others, so I don’t do that in public.
Almost everything I’ve seen so far about the 21st century makes me delighted to be stuck in the 20th. Tripolar and I have much in common, and I suspect he agrees.
Wolves INVENTED the concept of bouncing communications off the moon!
I do agree. Although I also love my 24th century communicator.
I’ll preface this by saying I have a Pixel 8 Pro, which is, I think, my seventh smart phone. They’ve all been fine talking on them with the phone up to my ear like an old desk phone. Some are more sensitive about getting the ear speaker lined up just so with my ear, but once I find the sweet spot, I can hear fine.
Phones now also have lots of microphones. I think mine has three. If I’ve got it in “phone” mode, it listens with the bottom microphone for my voice, and cancels sounds coming in on the top and rear microphones. The person on the other end hears me, not the noise surrounding me.
I know people who insist on doing that in-front of the face speakerphone thing, and their phones use all of the microphones to pass on all of the noise of their surroundings to me. Now their voice has to compete with the TV, the other people near to them talking, the toilet flushing, etc.
The point is, not only is using the speakerphone in public rude, but even in private it can make them more difficult to hear. Usually when I can’t hear someone (aside from background noise covering their voice) it’s because of a poor connection. No amount of yelling on their part is going to make the radio waves work better.
btw I very rarely talk on the phone in public at all, and never ever on speaker. All public phone calls are annoying in principle, sure. But my Star Trek communicator practice, for rare emergency public telephone calls, enables me to speak in normal tones rather than shout to be heard.
I’d like to argue that isn’t true, but I really can’t. 
One of my biggest beefs with the 21st century is that arguments are no longer about truth.
Slap one of these on that guy.
Stranger
I guess it depends on the phone. Mine is around 6.5 inches from top to bottom, putting the microphone around an inch below my mouth when the speaker is against my ear. If anything it is bigger than the distance on an old landline.