# Why exactly are Cell Phones so much more annoying???? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 18, 2006, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451 "2006-01-18T01:34:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/41 "2006-09-08T12:12:43Z")
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder] However, in his defense, the conversation that this woman was so offended by was quite obviously him learning that his father had colon cancer, and so yeah, he was distressed. [/QUOTE] Yet another problem with cell phones. People start having intensely personal and distrubing conversations on the bus. Obviously, Mr Herder couldn’t control what was and wasn’t revealed in that phone call, but when the cell becomes the typical way to contact someone, these conversations become instantly public. Seriously, a call like this doesn’t need to be made ASAP, it can wait an hour until there is a bit of privacy available. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/42 "2006-09-08T12:31:27Z")
You’ll have to speak up I can hardly hear you [QUOTE=featherlou] **I KILLING YOUR THREAD!!!** What? [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/43 "2006-09-08T12:32:33Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] Seems to me that all these problems kind of defeat the purpose of having a portable personal phone in the first place. [/QUOTE] If it happened every time, sure. Really though, I assure you that this isn’t the case. It happens, but this probably happens with one or two people. Most people I know keep their batteries charged, don’t turn off their phones at all, and if they don’t answer because it isn’t convienent, they call back pretty quick. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/44 "2006-09-08T12:36:06Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy] My mother’s cousin is a psychiatrist, and she told me that hands-free cell phones are an actual problem in contemporary psychiatry, as all the people who walk around talking to themselves now see a bunch of other people walking around talking to themselves, so surely there’s nothing strange about that? [/QUOTE] Ha! I can see this. I often drive with my earpiece in my ear, and there is one good thing about this and one bad(ish). The good is that I can sing along in my car and people think I am talking on my phone. The bad (could be good though, sometimes) is that when somebody cuts me off and I comment on it, it looks like I am just talking in my earpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/45 "2006-09-08T12:50:26Z")
I actually think it has been a whole since someone I have been to a movie where someone insisted on talking on their cell phone. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/46 "2006-09-08T13:02:21Z")
I used to live in a suburb of Orlando where everybody and their cousin worked in construction and the building trades. Everybody had a Nextel phone grafted to thier hips, and you couldn’t go more than a few minutes without hearing something like … _BRAAAAP! grah brah garr barr fucking drywall arrr baa graa rough-in plumbing beeee la da garrr goddamn grading inspection braa darrr gdarrrr shit gagarrrr aaaag arrrrr rent a Bobcat ladarrrrr gaaaa arrr Dale Earnhardt druarrrr BRAAAAAP!_ Thing was, since EVERYBODY had a Nextel phone, such interruptions were tolerated everywhere; restaurants, movie theaters, bookstores, you name it. One memorable time, at a restaurant in my neighborhood, a Nextel beeped and sounded off the following … _BRAAAAP! N __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r n __**r n**__ r BRAAAAP!_ Yup. Just some guy with a grizzled-sounding voice repeating the n-word. Good times. :rolleyes: The chatterbox cell-addicted popular girls and soccer moms I encounter in the Cleveburg suburbs seems like blissful silence in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/47 "2006-09-08T13:09:41Z")
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak] Yet another problem with cell phones. People start having intensely personal and distrubing conversations on the bus. Obviously, Mr Herder couldn’t control what was and wasn’t revealed in that phone call, but when the cell becomes the typical way to contact someone, these conversations become instantly public. Seriously, a call like this doesn’t need to be made ASAP, it can wait an hour until there is a bit of privacy available. [/QUOTE] Well true, I don’t think that people should be calling their SOs from the train to hash out their latest argument in front of an audience, but in this particular case he wasn’t the one who made the call. One of his sisters called him, and he answered it while we waited alone at the bus stop, no sign of a bus in sight at the moment and we didn’t know when it was due to arrive. I did understand the woman’s point, but I didn’t really dislike her until - after my husband had apologized, toned down and was being quite soft, mind you - she continued on a short soliloquy of bitching quite audibly about people’s manners these days, stupid cell phones, etc., etc. The bus crowd consisted of the driver, her, my husband, and I. So now she was ranting on and beginning to disturb the other people on the bus. 🙂 I didn’t elaborate earlier because I was on my way out the door and wasn’t sure it was needed. I never talk on my cell phone in public unless it’s short, to the point, non-dramatic, and I try to keep my voice down/duck my head into the window/move to the vestibule. My husband’s family also treat his cell phone and his work schedule very casually. It doesn’t help that most of them have far different work schedules than he does or don’t work, but I don’t think it’s that hard to remember that he works from early morning until some random time in the evening, 6 days a week, and that **he isn’t really supposed to use his cell at work** unless on break. So optimistic as he can be, he assumes that daytime calls on his cell are always super-important. Instead he typically gets random crap that could have waited until the evening, even though he tells them to just leave a message on our home line the next time, and says he has to hang up. Now that his parents are both in somewhat poor health, he always fears what the call might be about if he doesn’t answer. So, boo to people who think that having a cell phone is an excuse to call that person and chat during work hours. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/48 "2006-09-08T13:18:14Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] I forgot the punchline: think of how fucking annoying THAT will be to us old codgers. Whippersnappers will constantly be talking to totally random people out of the blue, without even lifting or opening a cellphone to distinguish their behavior from communicating with people locally. [/QUOTE] What do you mean ‘will be’? Welcome to the Bluetooth Headset age. It’s more fun when people are holding more than one conversation at once. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/49 "2006-09-08T13:19:31Z")
[QUOTE=Mince] I saw a person driving a vehicle. Her right hand was holding a cell phone to her ear. Her left hand was adjusting her hair. I could only hope her third hand was on the steering wheel. [/QUOTE] Oh, my husband saw something like this; I’ve forgotten some of the details but will recap best I can. A woman in our town was driving along, cell in one hand, froofy little dog on her lap, coffee in the other hand. Probably steering with her knees, at that point, or making occasional adjustments with the coffee-holding hand. Anyway, the car in front of her had to stop suddenly for some unknown reason, and of course she was following closely enough, and was distracted enough, that this was a panic moment. She braked abruptly but not in enough time to avoid a fender-bender; the braking plus accident was enough to send her cell phone (a Razr, my husband noted) flying out the open window and shattering on the pavement, the coffee apparently splashing somewhere inside the car, and the little dog out of her lap and into the angle formed by the windshield and the dashboard. He was fairly certain that, unfortunately, the dog was probably injured, judging by the yelping. I noted that it was a good thing the impact wasn’t enough to deploy the air bag, or else the little dog might’ve been splattered across the woman. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451/50 "2006-09-08T16:09:32Z")
[QUOTE=homeskillet] As far as I understand it, the reason people talk so loudly on cell phones is that unlike landlines, your voice is not played back through the receiver. This causes people to overcompensate for what is ironically perceived as talking too softly. [/QUOTE] It’s called sidetone, and there is no reason it can’t be done, and many phones do. The handset needs to generate it locally. There is enough delay that if it were done as in a landline system, you would have an echo effect like the old transatlantic calls used to, which is very distracting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-exactly-are-cell-phones-so-much-more-annoying/340451.md?page=2)