Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Wow, I thought it was just me

Interesting-sounding paper in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology: "Why are Mobile Phones Annoying?"

Ha! Want a list?

No, actually, it's not a list, it's a study. From the abstract:

Sixty four members of the public were exposed to the same staged conversation either while waiting in a bus station or travelling on a train. Half of the conversations were by mobile phone, so that only one end of the conversation was heard, and half were co present face-to-face conversations. The volume of the conversations was controlled at one of two levels: the actors' usual speech level and exaggeratedly loud. Following exposure to the conversation participants were approached and asked to give verbal ratings on six scales. Analysis of variance showed that mobile phone conversations were significantly more noticeable and annoying than face-to-face conversations at the same volume when the content of the conversation is controlled.

I'm pretty sure I know why I'm annoyed by mobile phones. I just didn't realize it was universal.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox summarized the data. The one thing I would be interested in was the scripts of the annoying conversations. The one thing that does make a difference as to whether I'm annoyed or maybe entertained (in a voyeristic way) is the content.

Last time I overheard a significantly long cell phone conversation on public transportation, I got caught up in the drama...from what I was able to gather, the guy on the train had called a partner/someone he wished was a partner who was out of town on a job interview. The person had been offered the job and was thinking about a quick move, which had the cell phone guy looking and sounding really alarmed. To make him even more crestfallen, he offered to help drive out to the new place and help with the move, but after a long pause he said "Oh. Well. I guess maybe once you have settled in, then..."

At which point we pulled into the last station and I missed the rest, but at that point the result was pretty clear anyway. I actually felt sorta sorry for the guy, but on the other hand, I applauded the decision of the person on the other end for having the good sense to get rid of him. Having loud private conversations in the Metro is certainly not a quality to look for in a partner, after all.

Posted by Nic at April 13, 2004 11:17 AM