[pseudosavant]

I've recently become a convert to this kind of thinking. The person invited the public to join in when they decided to have a public speakerphone call. If they don't want my responses or laughter, they get annoyed and stop the behavior I was finding annoying in the first place.

I don't even have to act like I'm bothered by it, or that I find their behavior offensive. They change their behavior because they are bothered by mine.

[onethought]

How is that different than two people talking in person? Do you interrupt them as well?

[itishappy]

Yup. Online too! I have no qualms about adding my two cents to any loud public conversations.

[stavros]

Do you think having your conversation on speakerphone in public is the same as talking to someone?

[sdenton4]

People talking to each other in person tend to modulate their voices to match the context. People talking on speakerphone tend to crank the volume and shout.

[sowbug]

And the person on the other end of the line often doesn't realize how uncivil the situation is. They might know they're on speakerphone, but they actually can't see that they're interrupting the trains of thought of dozens of people around them. This means the content of the conversation is more likely to be inappropriate for public consumption, making it even more distracting for the forced participants.

The person holding the speakerphone is to blame, of course, but they often seem to go into a state of pathological flow where they're almost as oblivious as their conversation partner.

[stavros]

Plus devices are tinny and grate. Watching a video on the phone of someone speaking is much more annoying than someone speaking in person, even at the same volume.

[onethought]

I think this is the only meaningful point being made in this thread.

The sound from a phone speaker is annoying, more so, than a typical in person talking. To me the solution lies somewhere in fixing that to make it sound more natural.

Everyone else claiming that some how having “loud” conversation is rude, feels like they’ve fallen into some anti-social hole… we are literally the only animal to have developed complex spoken language… it’s part of our humanity.

[shermantanktop]

It’s all context. Some cultures are loud, some are quiet; some people are loud, some are quiet; some places are supposed to be loud, and so on.

The people being quiet in an normally-loud place create no problems. The people being loud in a normally-quiet place are causing problems for others by violating the quiet.

Loud people also tend to be oblivious to this and then get defensive when it’s pointed out. Not always - I’ve known some naturally-loud people who had figured out that being shushed meant they were in the wrong.

[xp84]

No, the loudness is a whole separate dimension. 99% of the time, there's no need to be loud in public. Not when you're talking on the phone (the microphones on a phone work great!), not when you're having a conversation with one or two other people close to you. Not when talking to Siri (etc). You can talk quietly in a place that isn't very loud, and in a place like an airport you can talk just loud enough to be clearly heard -- there's no need to shout or to project your voice.

There are exceptions to this -- of course nobody expects you to worry about your volume at a concert between sets, at a sporting event, etc. But people who speak very loudly everywhere are annoying to everyone around them.

[strken]

No, loud conversation on a train during commuter hours really is rude where I live.

Most patrons have a conversation at a normal volume where the words are clear to their conversation partner but not to people sitting further away.

Speaking loudly enough to be understood from a significant distance is rude because it prevents other people from having their own conversations, and it forces people who are not having a conversation to listen to you. Speaking at an appropriate volume is not anti-social, it is pro-social: other people can't be social themselves if you're too loud.

The unwritten rules loosen up at night, during events, or at other times when there's a boisterous crowd.

[lxgr]

For speakerphone-appropriate situations (e.g. being alone or with people that all want to participate in a call), yes, that would be great.

For everything else, the solution is to STFU. People blasting reels or having rambling non-essential phone calls in public transport is detrimental to everybody's stress level and by extension mental and physical health. I'd love to see it banned and the ban actually enforced.

Shout out to the GGT 101 bus driver that made the annoying passenger on some endless legal/business call actually shut up with a polite but firm "Sir, this is a bus, not a call center". Best trip across the Golden Gate Bridge I've ever had.

[dredmorbius]

It's similar to the distinction between a driver having a conversation with a passenger in a vehicle vs. the same driver having a phone call, even in a hands-free / speakerphone mode.

The passenger will be far more aware of context and circumstances, including traffic or other hazards, and will generally adapt to those surroundings. The remote party simply has no access to those cues.

(And yes, some passengers may be oblivious, for various reasons, including but not limited to children. I'm discussing the general case.)

[mezyt]

A half conversation is a lot more disruptive because your brain try to fill in the gap of information.

[cortesoft]

This comment chain is talking about people using speakerphone, though, meaning they hear both sides of the conversation

[jomohke]

In theory yes, but in practice they usually have the speaker up far higher than they are speaking themselves so we do only hear one side clearly.

I think the high distractability is a trifecta of volume, non-naturallness of the sound (compression etc: feeling out of place in the space) and this point.

[lxgr]

If their voices sounded shrill/unnaturally amplified/too loud, definitely. Listening to an annoying conversation on speakerphone is 10x more annoying than when it's face-to-face.