Why Overheard Cell Phone Chats Are Annoying 344
__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."
What you find annoying (Score:4, Interesting)
I find amusing. I can learn more about a person from being a creepy eavesdropper than most people can by conversing with that person.
Also... (Score:5, Interesting)
* They're usually talking louder than everyone else.
* They're not looking where they're walking.
* They're constantly shouting "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
* They're unable to talk to you because they're distracted by another conversation
Backwards (Score:2, Interesting)
interesting research (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, duh. (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to set in a cube next to a guy who was always talking on the phone in Chinese. It always gave me a headache, because of the double whammy of hearing half a conversation in a language that I don't understand.
Re:interesting research (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well, duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a bit foreign languages (from one linguistic group) are actually more irritating, possibly. With totally foreign & unknown ones - they're just gibberrish. With related ones - there's constant trying to make sense out of something which doesn't have much of it, to you; trigerred by occasional words or even whole sentences which do sound "right"... (even if their true meaning is different)
Intonation and the "pregnant pause" (Score:5, Interesting)
The researchers have identified that a "halfalogue" is confusing, but I'd like to share another aspect I did not see addressed in the article. It's not just what is being said, it's also how it's being said.
In polite conversation there is a protocol, if you will, of how I speak to someone else. Tone of voice, intonation, and the like provide information in addition to the words that I use. When I have a question and ask someone for an answer, there's a change in the tone of my voice at the end and then a pause while I await the other person's answer. Kind of an out-of-band signaling system.
To complicate matters, there are times when I've daydreamed while someone was talking to me, and then all of a sudden I realize that I have been asked a question and they are waiting for my answer.
So, when I'm only hearing part of a conversation, and then there's this ... pause ... there's a part of me that thinks "OMG, did I zone out and they are waiting for me to respond?" Since I do NOT hear the other side of the conversation, I get confusing inputs. Audio inputs suggest I should say something; visual inputs say it's not for me.
Re:Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
Fo' Shizzle
Re:It couldn't possibly be because (Score:5, Interesting)
The one thing I've always found is that people in groups (3+) are BY FAR the single most annoying loud talkers EVER. Couples tend to be quieter (not all ethnicities but most). Pre-college kids are the absolute worst in terms of noise pollutants. What's worse is that they frequently play music - sorry, animal noises - on their phones for the group without headphones. College kids are just as bad because everyone appears to find safety in numbers when it comes to shouting their point out loud - again, ethnic and racial differences are dramatic (and no, I ain't white =p).
I would rank loud cell phone talkers probably 3rd or 4th in order of annoyance. The reasoning in tfa might be valid for most, but halfalogues haven't really bothered me in the past few years. Probably because I've heard so many full dialogues on the bus and now KNOW that most people really converse about stupid, uninteresting shit and can pretty much fill in the other sides of the convos without giving it much thought. So, tfa might be right, but intelligent human beings tend to adapt to frequently prevailing conditions. People who use public transport only once in a blue moon would find it the hardest I guess.
For me, the single most annoying thing that I have never adapted to is the Berkeley bum smell clinging to every bus and is probably the one reason I would accept without reservation for someone to waste money on gas and parking spaces. The "smelly car" episode in Seinfeld always resonated with me. *Cough* moving on.
It always amazes me that people who are having conversations in public places (not too quietly either in that you can hear everything quite clearly) actually have the gall to look dirty at people talking on cell phones just as (if not less) loudly than they are. For me (once you've adapted to ignore things), it is simply a matter of decibel level. I argue only from experience, not plausibility.
br> And for the record, I don't have cell phone convos on the bus, even though I usually travel alone. It's far too noisy to have a civilized convo. I figure if I'm not gonna have any peace and quiet, I might as well have the noise that I choose blasting in my ear instead of the mundane drivel that assails my ears everyday. The people who invented earphones and portable mp3 players should be given Nobel peace prizes because I am positive that they have prevented several noise-related homicides over the years =D.
In parting, I will only say that tfa being right just means that most people are nosy busybodies at heart who don't have the decency to ignore private conversations. Oh, is that too uncharitable an interpretation? Let me know when people sober up and lower their idiotic cellphone rage (that I half-suspect is a reactionary luddite thing for people of a certain age and an acquired issue for most youngsters who've heard one too many jokes and sitcom plots based on it) and I'll be sure to retract it. It's like fat people - an easy and socially acceptable thing to ridicule.
Re:Also... (Score:2, Interesting)
prove it ;)
Ooooohhh... punkd by science...
They're louder too. (Score:3, Interesting)
People talking on cellphones tend to carry their voices better than two people having a conversation amongst themselves in public. Anytime I answer the phone in public, I make a distinct effort to lower my voice, and if possible find a suitably private area, for the sole reason that I don't want to annoy the crap out of people I don't know just because I'm talking on the phone. I think if people would chat at the same volume on the phone as they do in person, it wouldn't be annoying to anyone.
It also seems like people tend to tune out the fact that people are around them. This might somewhat explain the volume increase, but it also means that they seem to feel comfortable talking about more intimate topics. Most people would be somewhat guarded about information about where and when their kids will be, phone numbers, etc.. but I hear people blurt information out loudly enough for everyone within 30 feet to clearly make it out.
-Restil
Re:Halfalogues? (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference is that a monologue is intended to be spoken by one person. It's complete, whole, and self-contained - unlike half of a two-way conversation.
Obligatory; if you cut a car in half, you don't get two motorbikes.
Re:Common sense.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of us did already know this. Owing to Sensory Integration Disorder or something like it, I have very acute senses, or rather I have very acute processing of my senses. I am always painfully aware of what distracts, irritates, and bothers me, and I have been driven to understand why in each instance that it occurs (in the hope that the knowledge might help me flee or fight it). It took me a long time, but I figured this out for myself; I recognized that the distraction flowed from the absence of context, which made what I heard confusing and demanded extra attention to unwillingly try to reconstruct what was missing. It didn't occur to me that it would be worthy of a full-blown academic study.
Re:It couldn't possibly be because (Score:5, Interesting)
The rest of personal attacks I'll ignore as I don't think add much to the discussion.
If I'd done just that, this entire sub-thread wouldn't exist. Perhaps there's a lesson in this for me.
I agree on "ethnic" and I think implying racial differences is racist, whether you're white or not.
I'll say it again because this is important. Racial differences do exist in some things (some medical conditions for instance). I admitted that in the matter under consideration, the differences, while showing some correlation with race are so unlikely to be caused by race (no doubt having more to do with culture and upbringing), that mentioning that correlation added nothing to the discussion. It was incorrect on my part, maybe even intellectually lazy. By any sane definition of the word, not racist. Words have specific meaning. Let's not use them arbitrarily.
If anything, my flippant remark about not being white was my worst mistake, because it appeared (incorrectly) to be an apology for racism.
Well, what you leave in "among other things" is, still, "Racism: racial prejudice or discrimination". Quoting you again: "ethnic and racial differences are dramatic", where you did discriminate by race.
*Sigh*. Prejudice is the act of pre-judging a group (specifically in this case - a racial group) of a certain (usually negative) behavior or mannerism. Discrimination is the treatment (or any noun conveying action taken) of groups (or individuals belonging to certain groups) based on prejudice.
No matter how hard you wish it, simply stating that a specific behavior has been observed [from personal experience] to show large differences between different racial groups is neither prejudiced [empirical observations] nor discriminatory [there is no action or even the possibility of any action implied]. The statement (while valid as a summary of observations) may be useless, but it certainly isn't racist. In practice, the PC movement discourages such things merely because they have tended to lead to discrimination - understandable, but I have the right to refuse such preemptive high-handedness. If I ever happen to fall that way, I'll be sure to look you up so you can berate me soundly for being racist. Until then, get it right.
Sorry for the lack of precision and the excessively aggressive first reply, that stained an otherwise interesting dialogue.
Thanks. While the accusation did sting initially, I've spent all this time trying to explain why you are incorrect, not defending myself (it's an objective matter).
There is a book by Thomas Sowell (a renowned economist) called "Applied Economics [amazon.com]" (a more scholarly version of Freakonomics in some respects). His chapter on 'the economics of discrimination' is very enlightening on this point. He spends several pages properly defining all his terms. In retrospect, I can see why he did that. In any case, it (and the book itself) is very enlightening - you might find it interesting. Most libraries should carry it.