What are we going to do about mobile phones in public?

What is your solution may I ask

  • Make not using headphones punishable by prison

    Votes: 12 54.5%

  • Make not using headphones punishable by fine

    Votes: 5 22.7%

  • Make new jobs by employing HeadPhone Enforcers

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • Accept our dystopia

    Votes: 3 13.6%

  • I am a non-headphone wearing nightmare

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    22
Suomi

Suomi

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Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
54,304
I have been all around the UK in the past few days and I have gradually lost the will with how many people are now just using their mobile phones for video calls, music or social media videos openly without headphones. I know it’s been a gradually increasing problem but I would say the scales have tipped and we have to take action. Just the past day alone:

1. Family in restaurant on a zoom call (solved this by screaming in Swedish with my mother until they got the idea - got to hand it to my mum for starting this)
2. Family on a train phoning presumably another family member in the Quiet Carriage (solved this by texting the British Transport Police)
3. A man on our tube carriage brazenly playing his music (solved this by playing Charlotte Perrelli and staring)

I am literally risking my life in all these scenarios in order to uphold the law.

What should we do?
 
I don't see the option for decapitate their ears and stuff an orange inside their mouths but I vote that
 
I’m getting increasingly agitated with it, also I’m seeing an increase in the gym where many are conducting loud lengthy conversations at the top of their voices with or without headphones whilst hogging a station and doing fuck all for minutes on end which grates me if I’ve popped in to try and get it done before work. I finally asked someone if they were actually using the machine on Wednesday and they just moved off without answering to another piece of apparatus with YouTube still blasting :evil:
 
It really is the worst. I will occasionally passive aggressively say something to the person I'm with about it (if I think I can take them in a fight) but obviously that's a very rare occasion so I think we need a special police force dedicated to dealing with this issue alone.
 
I’d say publicly shame them, but the audacity of these people probably means they’re immune to shame. So public hanging.
 
There was a teenager on my row on a plane watching a tv show on her phone at full volume recently.

That was a first :zombie:
 
Lucille said:
On the Eurostar they make an announcement at boarding that this behaviour is prohibited, it needs to become policy on public transport too.
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It seems MUCH less prevalent on trains, at least here. Offenders usually get scolded as soon as they answer a phone call from their seat :)
 
We went to a dessert takeaway type thing with Ron Jr on Friday night and it was full of yoof. They were all just blaring short form video. Its not something I've been aware of quite so much before because I don't really hang out in these sort of places but it was awful, very black mirror.

I say we bring back hanging
 
I almost got into a full blown argument with a fully grown man on a train a couple of months ago who wanted to watch YouTube shorts out loud. We swore at each other then he stopped.
 
ExcitableWoof said:
Yeah I hate this too. What I don't understand is why do people do this?
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It started with the demise of headphone ports and continued from there.

The thing is - I understand why it happens when people are in groups because you can’t share headphones between more than two people, but if you’re on your own? Why are you not using your fucking headphones? Presumably you used them before this became the norm?

The problem with Bluetooth headphones is that you genuinely can forget to charge them, but half the time I think people are just too lazy to go through the faff of connecting to them. They create extra labour for people compared to the traditional plug and play wired ones (which I always keep a spare pair of on me just incase!)

Sad to say i’ve only confronted people about this twice - both at the start of an hour-or-so long train journey and both times in Scotland (the second time the guy was on FaceTime and literally wearing airpods but simply not using them so I knew he had headphones). I’ve not had the balls to confront anyone in London yet.

I think there is a level of context dependence as to both what is “allowed” and also in terms of what i’m willing to put up with. Part of the reason I said something on both of the above occasions is because I had an hour long train journey ahead of me… whereas on the Tube there is every chance the offender will be getting off in five or ten minutes. I think playing your own music out loud to an entire disinterested Tube carriage is extremely obnoxious behaviour, but perhaps if you’re all on the Tube to Wembley to see Harry Styles and you’re playing some of his songs and people are getting hyped up then maybe that’s not the worst.

But maybe I am part of the problem? Arguably every time someone gets away with it, pro-social norms and courtesy are further eroded.
 
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dUb said:
There was a teenager on my row on a plane watching a tv show on her phone at full volume recently.

That was a first :zombie:
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What did you do, @dUb? I like to think i’d have said something immediately but as evidenced above I can be a bit of a coward. Doing it on a plane is absolutely crazy behaviour given how many people try and nap during flights.

The thing is - people will always throw up contradictory false equivalences… like “well, what about babies crying on flights?” and it’s like ‘listen, I don’t love babies crying on flights but they can’t help it and you absolutely fucking can.’
 
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As I said, some buses here do have announcements not to play music or TV out loud, and it is noticeable that it does happen less often on those buses, as much as I snorted the first time I heard it, thinking it would make little difference. So I do think that it ought to be standard.

I've never challenged anyone else personally though. But then I nearly always have my headphones or earphones to drown it out so I tend to forget about it.
 
lolly said:
I've never challenged anyone else personally though. But then I nearly always have my headphones or earphones to drown it out so I tend to forget about it.
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Yeah, my own noise cancelling headphones mean I probably don't even notice most of the time others are playing stuff out loud, and even when I do it's not annoying enough to bother saying anything.

Though it is of course MORTIFYING when you think your headphones are connected and they aren't, and suddenly your podcast is blaring outloud to everyone, and of course, not during an INNOCUOUS ADVERT FOR SPECSAVERS :angry:
 
dUb said:
There was a teenager on my row on a plane watching a tv show on her phone at full volume recently.

That was a first :zombie:
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Parents who let their kids use their iPad at full volume on planes. Love those people.
 
funky said:
Parents who let their kids use their iPad at full volume on planes. Love those people.
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This grandma bought spawn of spawn special children headphones for her birthday so she could watch her bablet (ipad) on the plane to Turkey without disturbing anybody. Spawn had no idea these headphones existed.

Grandma bought them because she's sick of listening to annoying children programme noises in the background every time she FaceTimes spawn.
 
I frequently see all of the annoying examples mentioned in this thread, and I especially hate people who blast their entertainment and constantly wish for their prompt downfall. But I still don't think a policy will change much because there's too much personal discretion involved.

In Chicago, most public transportation has "No loud music/conversation" signs, but they're not enforced and many people don't follow it.
So even IF governments introduced a law or ordinance, the main challenge is still whether social behavior, norms, and etiquette will shift with it.

Good luck to any large city trying to regulate and enforce phone use. Living among other people requires voluntarily surrendering tiny amounts of convenience all day long. And I can't see that happening in today's hyper-individualistic age. If a government ever tried it, I would fully expect residents to respond with some version of "It's my right".
 
I'd be worried about listening to music out loud on a train in any American city. Those people all have guns.
 
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