Why do some people use their speakerphone in public?

[jrmasm]

 

[soccerdad72]

No idea - there's a woman in our office who does it from her cubicle all the time. Fortunately, she's part-time, so she's only in a couple days a week, but it's pretty rude to subject a whole section of office space to both sides of your conversation.

 

[weeniecat2442]

this drives me CRAZY! I also don't understand why people have long conversations on public transportation or while standing in a big crowd.

 

[aprilchem]

No idea. I was just in the mall yesterday and there was a woman there doing it.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I can't always hear my phone. Sometimes even on speaker I need to hold it right up to my ear.

 

[taylor1293]

In March, I walked into one of the bathrooms at Disney and some lady was in the stall on the speaker. Ridiculous!

 

[luvsJack]

I used to have to do this. My very first smart phone, 3 days after I got it I dropped it in a cup with a very small amount of liquid in it. The speaker malfunctioned and I couldn't hear the person calling unless it was on speaker. Didn't have insurance, brand new phone, had to keep it for awhile before I could upgrade. But I kept the volume down as low as I could but sometimes it could seem really loud. Made for very short conversations! LOL

I seriously doubt this is why most people do it though.

 

[MickeySP]

Because what they have to say is so important we all need to hear about their spectacular lives

 

[sharona]

This happened to me the other day in the waiting room for my massage appointment! Seriously it's a dimly lit room with candles and soft music playing and you not only have a 10 minute phone conversation you do it on speaker? While holding the phone away from your ear every time the other person talked because it was so freaking loud. If my masseuse hadn't come to get me right then I would have had to say something.

Let's face it - People are rude and oblivious.

 

[Chuckers]

Because they're inconsiderate...
Whenever I hear someone using their cell phone in a public bathroom, I make sure to flush the toilet several times and turn on the hand dryer if there is one.

 

[anniemae]

But how else would you know how incredibly important and popular they are????

 

[Geoff_M]

Drive me nuts! For a lot of people, I think it's a "bad habit" they learned back in the day when Nextel phones that had the "direct connect" feature were all the rage. These people still like to hold their phones horizontally right in front of their mouths, while they are on "speaker", and talk right into the base of the unit.

 

[kamik86]

The only reason I can think of that would make sense would be if there were multiple people that needed to hear the call. We had people at work that did it just because work didn't give them a headset yet and they didn't want to hold the phone(that should be fixed now though since they just got the new ones in)

 

[Chuckers]

These people still like to hold their phones horizontally right in front of their mouths, while they are on "speaker", and talk right into the base of the unit.

And it looks stupid when they do that...


(p.s. "Jacob lived in the land of Canaan, a fine example of a family man.")

 

[sunshinehighway]

I can't stand when people walk around stores holding long conversations on their phones. Speak phone is especially irritating. Most of the time the person can't shop and talk (and hold the phone) at the same time anyways so why not just leave the store or call the person back later.
People who use speakerphone seem to be completely clueless about their surrounding. That extends to people who watch videos on their phones with other people sitting there.

 

[sunshinehighway]

Drive me nuts! For a lot of people, I think it's a "bad habit" they learned back in the day when Nextel phones that had the "direct connect" feature were all the rage. These people still like to hold their phones horizontally right in front of their mouths, while they are on "speaker", and talk right into the base of the unit.

I blame reality TV for that. People on reality shows do that.

 

[Micca]

It's a strange phenomenon isn't it? People are very concerned about privacy in their communications, then they let everyone in the vicinity hear both sides of the conversation.

 

[YoYoAurora]

Depending on my mood, I sometimes chime in on the conversation. After all, it's on speaker phone, which to me says it's not a private conversation but a public one. I will chime in if you're on speaker phone in a public bathroom.

 

[Chuckers]

It's a strange phenomenon isn't it? People are very concerned about privacy in their communications, then they let everyone in the vicinity hear both sides of the conversation.

My friend and I were walking through Macy's in Ft. Lauderdale and there was this guy talking to his male friend about what a good time he had at the bar the night before. He proceeded, very loudly, to give the other person his cell phone number. Well, my friend CALLED the number and pretended to be a "date" from a previous night. Kept this guy going for about 10 minutes and finally said "No man, you don't know me, but you really shouldn't shout out your phone number in the middle Macy's." Then hung up.

I was having a very hard time holding in my laughter.

 

[HM]

I think my FIL has done this before, but he's in his 80s and I think it was a matter of he hit the button and didn't know how to get off speaker.