When you use speakerphone, you have to talk louder for the other person to hear you. If you use the phone properly, you can speak more quietly, so that others around you don’t hear your voice as much. If the person you’re talking to is using speakerphone, the sound echos, picks up more background noise, and is muddy. On a cel phone it’s even worse because it goes into a kind of half-duplex mode where it seems like the speaker and mike won’t work at the same time. Makes it difficult to have a normal flow of conversation.
If someone calls me using speakerphone, I’m going to ask them to turn it off so we can hear each other clearly.
Many kids use the headphones to talk on the phone nowadays. But when they can’t use their headphones, they opt for speaker. If you are using the speaker, it is clearer if you speak right into the mic that way. They don’t want to just press their faces to the phones, because the phone is usually busy with some app open, or some browser or whatever…My cheek touching the screen can fuck everything up.
Isn’t it the case that if you’re using earbuds without an in-line mic, the phone mic still works? So, if you’re wearing earbuds, you can talk to the base of the phone, and you don’t need to have the speaker on. I think that’s the configuration I’ve seen most. I often see people talking to the base of the phone, but they have earbuds on and I don’t hear the other side.
Earbuds would sound better than the phone speaker (speakerphone mode or not), and you can talk directly into the mic at the bass, so you probably sound better, too. And, you’re probably already wearing your earbuds.
It’s pretty noisy where I commute, so I doubt speaker-phone mode would work anyway – they other side wouldn’t be able to get a word in.
One reason is that modern cellphones aren’t shaped for holding to an ear. They don’t even seem to be physically designed to be used as a phone. My Pixel XL2 is so wide it’s hard to wrap my hand around it and holding it to an ear feels like something that wasn’t intended. If you put the speaker next to your ear, your mouth is nowhere near the microphone. As an audio engineer, this looks like poor design.
Contrast this to a standard 1970’s landline phone handset, which was designed to be a speaker & microphone.
I hold the cell phone as described in the OP when I am using the voice to text feature, so I can see what interesting, incorrect translations Google is interpreting from my Maine accent. But I never actually have a conversation in that position.
I prefer not to hold my phone to my ear. It’s not a comfortable position to hold through a conversation. Also, the shapes of modern smartphones aren’t designed to be comfortably held to the ear like the old landline phones were.
Other reasons:
having the sound of the other person in front of you is more natural—that’s usually how you listen to things around you. It’s more comfortable than having sound blasted right into your ear.
It prevents your cheek accidentally bumping the screen and doing something like ending the call.
It allows you to continue using other functions of your smartphone
I’m 54 and I’ve always talked on cell phones that way–first when I had the Star-Trek-like flip phone, and now with the flat one. With the speaker on, I can just put it down and listen, or speak, while I’m doing other things like drinking tea or sorting laundry.
Don’t you people have proximity sensors on your phones? Every smartphone I’ve ever owned will blank the screen when you hold it to your ear, just so you don’t accidentally bump a button.
Anyway, I’m mostly seen this on TV shows, where they want to let the audience hear both sides of the conversation without constantly cutting between both participants. My guess is that real people have picked up the habit from seeing television characters do it.
Is this related to listening to music by hanging your earbuds over your ears, with the buds themselves dangling a few inches below, so you have to crank your volume to the max so you (and everyone else in the room) can hear it?
Based on all of the replies, it seems this is useful option for a variety of reasons. It is somewhat surprising that the cell phone manufacturers have not caught on to this and continue to design products that are essentially designed for traditional handset-to-the-ear use. Perhaps someone will come up with an alternative design that is more aligned with this usage?
Tim, I’m also confused by people worrying about pressing an errant key or hanging up accidentally. My phone screen turns off when the phone gets close to my ear.
It’s not a “my experience” issue. It’s an objective fact. It was well known even on landlines (or as we called them, just phones) before cell phones became common. Cite:
Has anyone else seen where people hold the microphone end to their early and have it jutting out at 90 degrees so the hearing end is a phone’s length from their head?
Seriously I see this fairly often and it baffles me.