Unprompted, I will tell you the most obnoxious ring tone I have ever heard. It was on the subway and a voice was suddenly loudly proclaiming: "Warning! Warning! The owner of this phone is a self-confessed binge drinker" until some douchebag picked up the call.
that has not stopped me from calling it out. in my experience, most people seem to be unaware that it bothers other people (or at least they claim to be unaware).
that said, a decent number of them are unwilling to change their behavior after being told that it does bother people.
A narcissistic sociopath is someone who exhibits traits of both narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). They may have an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a lack of regard for others, and a tendency to manipulate others to get what they want
If someone told me to silence my phone in public they would get laughed at. And if you persist I'll tell you to call the cops, who will then proceed to laugh at you.
Theatres, yeah, they shouldn't even vibrate.
Edit: you're prefences are noted and ignored. People have been loud in public since there has been public. Get over yourselves.
Presumably, for such a complaint, the cops wouldn't even bother to come to laugh at you unless they were very very bored. This is probably true in both circumstances you described. Also, I can't speak for others, but unless detained I wouldn't stick around most public locations long enough for someone to complain about a notification from my phone. Even if a call is received and must be answered, it seems appropriate to accept the call and leave the immediate shared area if possible. Obviously, in such circumstances as a moving bus, quickly leaving isn't really feasible.
However, I partially agree with the person to whom you responded. Your phone shouldn't make any media based sound (videos, music) in public. I also mostly agree with what I think you're saying: in most circumstances, notification sounds are inoffensive. Movies are not the only exception to this but definitely are one. Laughing in the face of someone who requests quiet in a public shared area seems rude, though, and might escalate the situation.
To elaborate, recently I went to see a dental surgeon. As I approached the waiting area, my immediate thought was to set my phone to vibrate. Once I entered, however, I realized that not only was there a TV in the space; also there was an elderly couple watching TV on their phones. Not only were they doing so, not only were they watching something different from what was on the TV, not only were they watching their media at BLARING volume, but they were also watching vastly different content. In this circumstance, notifications could be - reluctantly - forgiven, but their blasting and conflicting media made it very difficult to concentrate on filling out my paperwork.
I'm too much of a wimp to have approached them, but in that circumstance I think it would have been appropriate to ask them to silence their media and would have only required a vague awareness of the existence of others for them to have done so without prompting.
Though the cops, if they came, would likely still have just laughed.
An aside: as soon as the presumed wife left the waiting area, the likely husband shut off his media. I don't know what that means, but wanted to mention it.
I think one of the platforms used to pause at some point reading comments if you fullscreened them, then changed it so it would play unless manually paused first. YouTube Shorts?
Hearing the same 15 second soundbite 30 times… tremendous for engagement!
I swear to god, please please please do not blast your fucking music, even if it is rad like ratm, on the walking trail. No one likes it and it makes you look like an asshole and I have to glare at you instead of giving you a friendly wave.
I see a few cyclists doing that these days on the bike trails. Some of these absurd $10K+ bicycles even have speakers built into them. I guess it's slightly less obnoxious since a bicycle will pass a walker or runner very quickly, but it's still dickhead behavior. Even worse than music, though, is people who blast fucking preachers.
Man, my brother is the worst for this. Has multiple pairs of headphones, usually at least one on his person, and STILL will blast his Instagram reel on speaker as if everyone around him wants to hear his doomscrolling and brainrot memes
I really wish people were more interested in open format ear buds and bone conductors. They are the perfect blend between personalized notifications, background music and being able to hear what's going on around you as well as so much more comfortable than having your ear holes plugged up. I wear mine all day long sometimes and forget I'm even wearing them.
I was thinking "I bet back in the day people would have called people out on their shit. That's why standards were higher". So I called some guy out on it and he was like "sorry sorry sorry. Okay" and he put his hands up.
Look cunt you obviously seem to know it's not right if you acting like that so why you being a knobhead? Just because no one will call you out?
If the guy said sorry like in your story he obviously Canadian.
You do that in Australia you either get punched or a chicken shit who has his ego so far up his anxiety he makes an effort to talk back, fails and jumps out on the next train stop afraid you’re gonna punch his gizzards. (But hey it was effective non the less)
If it’s in America you just created another school shooting what with traumatizing a student by asking him to turn down his device and now the world must pay.
You got what you wanted and you're angry about it. YOU are the problem.
I can only imagine what a dick you probably are all the time. Even by your own telling in this story you sound like you were probably rude or even threatening to a stranger because they made you so mildly uncomfortable.
Not even really because you were uncomfortable, but because you are roiling mad about cell phone etiquette having declined since "back in the day". Whatever that means.
Bend what they said more, let's see if it breaks! They got mad at the way the person responded revealing they knew they were doing a dick, it's quite simple
I can only imagine what a dick you probably are all the time
Judging from your comment I'm going with: because projection
You don’t even know what he said. You have no evidence they were rude or threatening in their request.
Albeit you sound snowflake enough if someone asked you full stop to ‘please turn it down’ that you’d act a victim even on basic communication. You’d probably inject a bunch of narrative shit into the story to even play how you’re a victim.
If you are in public, like a bus, restaurant, store, public space, etc.
Your phone shouldnt make any fucking noise at all besides ringing and the text ping noise.
And if you're gonna answer it, don't put it on speakerphone, and respect teh fact that everyone within 300 feet of you doesnt want to be party to your fucking phonecall.
lol, no fellow commenter, this also happened before they did that, there was even an ONG or random group here that walked around with very cheap wired earbuds to distribute to these rude people a decade ago. It just wasn't video but downloaded mp3s.
Ehh a bit disingenuous. Apple, samsung, and google took away the headphone jack. You either have to get an old phone (like late 2010s) or buy it from niche companies (sony phones, gaming phones, or some chinese phones)
It doesn't actually matter. A addiction will ruin lives if unchecked. No matter if physical or psychological. It's all about definitions at that point too.
Where does physical end and where does psychological start.
I don't have this problem because whenever I'm in public I have my headphones on. Even if I'm not listening to anything on them they're still good enough to muffle every other sound blasted by others.
It's easier to adapt myself than it is to educate everyone else I guess.
Ever go hiking? Skiing? Sit in a park? This is the same concept as some douche blasting shit on their Bluetooth speaker while you're trying to exist in the moment.
Maybe it's hard to conceive of for some, but the world shouldn't be shielded by headphones.
The thing is that either I shield myself whenever it's possible so I don't get annoyed over other people's actions and get to live a reasonable nice day, or I let myself be annoyed by them and don't enjoy my hiking or sitting in the park experience anyway.
Either way I don't really encounter these people unless I'm using public transportation. If I'm on the beach then I sometimes encounter them but then it's chill and I can just find another place.
On a trail, where you are not subjected to anybody else's noise for more than a second as they pass you by?
Skiing?
You're skiing down a slope and a person is skiing next to you with a Bluetooth speaker?
Sit in a park?
Outdoors, where you can put some distance between yourself and them?
Maybe it's hard to conceive of for some, but the world shouldn't be shielded by headphones.
You're right, it's already shielded by air. The air that you can put between yourself and the other person.
The point was regardless of whatever they're doing, you are only as subject to their poor behavior as you choose to be.
If you're not going to do something about it (and please tell me what you would actually do about this beyond complaining on the internet), then your only other choice is mitigation, which involves just keeping headphones with you to block out other people's noise or learn to find more peaceful spaces.
I used to judge people for going about their daily lives with headphones on (like shopping) as being antisocial. In the last few years, I've come to realize they were just quicker to realize how annoying our society is and I'm increasingly likely to join them.
Recently I went to a mall and visited all the department stores. One of them had a guy playing a piano live and my first thought was "how quaint". Then, as I sat and waited for my wife to try things on it struck me that I wasn't hearing horrible music played over speakers - the piano was really nice. Why can't places go back to playing relaxing music like that (even recorded)?
Theres a restaurant I go to which plays music that youd expect from a fallout game. The old folks like it cause nostalgia but a couple other folks on the younger end have said something along the lines of "I heard this in Fallout New Vegas" its great, also apparently Big Iron played once and a bunch of old bastards and younger guys sung along to it. I wish I was there for it.
IMO, there's two main factors at play. First, the speakers in most stores suck. They have to buy them at volume (quantity, not loudness), and install them everywhere. The primary reason they have them is for paging, so they can make announcements and request that people go places. Music just gives the speakers something to do while not doing announcements.
Due to the amount of speakers they buy, and their primary purpose being for announcements, they don't exactly buy high quality speakers. If the store has existed for a long time (maybe 10+ years), then it's likely they're analog, so the quality is also affected by the amps they're using, and the cables, etc.
As long as the system can still do paging/announcements without issue, the business really doesn't have any reason to spend money on upgrading it.
For the most part, most companies have connected these to some kind of satellite radio or music streaming system (like Spotify, but more business centric). It's just plugged into the ancient sound amps for the analog system, often by someone who isn't an audio expert, so levels are often all over the place, sometimes to loud and blown out, other times too quiet and details in the music are too quiet to be heard.
As long as the speakers still perform the announcements/paging that the company requires, they don't care if the music sounds bad.
There's a lot more to say on it for contributing factors, but the main drivers for it are not to play music. With the shift to digital and everything needing to update their music providing device, coupled with untrained people doing the connections for the new music solution to an ancient speaker system, it's unsurprising that it sounds like garbage.
Great points on the horrible quality of sound in these places. I was referring more to the selection of music, but playing it at low quality certainly makes it worse. My kids joke that the grocery store is where old pop songs go to die.
Drag shops with phonics in. Drag has autism and doesn't need to hear 50 people's conversations and bad pop music just to have a migraine when drag gets home. Drag does not think the grocery store is a place for social interaction anyway.
I was on an airplane one time when someone was doing that. The flight attendant heard it and said something like, "Oh no, that's not okay," then figured out who it was and had them turn it down. No one even asked - she just did it. Excellent.
This chick was watching how-to makeup tiktoks super loud w no headphones and after 5 mins I asked if she could turn it down and she scowled at me and said ‘YOU CAN WAIT’
no I told him to shut up and he told me I was being immature and told me to shut up and I told him that he was the one who was disrupting things that needed to leave and half of the store tried to take his side and say hey this is America buddy he can listen to whatever he wants to and I was telling them that he should get some headphones for his Nazi propaganda and then the guy eventually fucked off muttering under his breath and the managers knew that I was cool so I sat back down and chilled
It takes me a while to see how enraged I get with it. I always have to wonder if I can take a punch from that person.
I once joked, "hey that's pretty loud isn't it?" And instead of them taking the hint, they were startled and were like, what's going on? and I instead I just go, "excuse me, could you turn that down?" now. Direct approach is better.
Literally my school bus, there's like 50 students inside at any given time, more than half of them blast tiktoks, shorts, reels or other bullshit, the rest are either yelling and acting macho, or really wanna gtfo of that bus.
Well thanks for the inside intel, because I briefly would consider it when I saw the local busses' "Now hiring drivers!" stickers but then imagined this is what would make it pretty much hell every day. :D
I'd say if you want to be thanked a lot per day, being a driver is for you, although I'd rather drive the public buses than the monstrosity of a school bus
It's my understanding that around here, the pay is low because you don't work full-time, but a lot of the people do it are doing it because they can still get health insurance through it.
I was at a party and another person was watching videos on their phone without headphones while everyone was watching a movie. We were all too polite to say anything because it was part of a three-day meetup for people who had been talking to each other on a forum for years and no one wanted to be critical of anyone else, but wow did it piss me off.
I know, but I feel like that was an unusual situation- a group setting where everyone would be there for multiple days and no one knew each other in person. Sort of a 'everyone be diplomatic' thing so as to not make things bad for the hosts.
Or they are asshole trash that is angry, bitter and just waiting for someone to say something so they can be the one to be in control (since God knows they aren't in their own life) to deny everyone around them the comfort of silence or.... will want to fight. You find a lot of these types on public transportation and they do it on purpose.
At work once, some guy was watching YouTube videos in the bathroom stalls with sound on. He was also laughing at the videos. What a fucking weirdo! What kind of animal does this?
Stand left, walk right on escalators and moving walkways
This may be region-specific. In my area, I generally see it the other way around. But unless you're the only person, it's usually pretty clear which side to stand.
Treat yourself like a car and park - I see too many people just stopping in the middle of wherever to check their phone. It's not hard to take a quick glance and find a spot off to the side. They should teach this stuff in schools.
If you have enough money to afford a modern cellphone, you can pay $20 for crappy bluetooth headphones like the rest of us. It's very interesting that it's never an otherwise very respectful and thoughtful individual whose playing their music loudly in a public space, there's always one or two other markers letting you know they're just always an asshole.
I fucking hate how I can't read about anything any more. Especially instructional things.
It's getting to the point that if there's something I want to learn about or research, I have to watch a video. And of course, I probably didn't bring headphones, because I wasn't planning on listening to or watching anything.
I need headphones regularly for learning languages (Duolingo), learning coding, learning about physics etc
So there are always Bluetooth headphones in my small bag.
Then you wait until you get home or to an otherwise appropriate venue. No one wants to hear a tutorial they didn't ask for about putting up drywall on their commute home or in the grocery store.
Most yt channels have captions and transcripts. If you really are that desperate to learn how to install a French drain while on the bus, just grab the transcript and whack it into chatgpt to get an article version.
This is not really true in my experience. The vast majority of instructional videos and video essays are just repackaging a text resource, often just the list of references from Wikipedia. I think you're just falling for the veneer of professionalism that makes YouTubers popular, but remember it doesn't actually mean they know what they're talking about any more than a random forum poster. There are of course exceptions, but the glut of instructional videos is just because they're profitable, not because they're actually full of unique knowledge.
As I understand it, people mostly change their mind (and thus behavior) for two reasons.
The first is in-group beliefs. If someone sees other people in their in-group believing a thing or behaving in a way, they're more likely to adopt that. Possibly the people who play audio in public, their friends and peers are the same way. But if you also might be in one of their groups, like a college kid to another college kid, or a junior professional to another, talking to them might make a difference. But if you're like a 59 year rich old white guy, telling a 16 year old non-white poorer kid is unlikely to land, because they probably see you as outgroup.
The other thing that changes minds is horrible trauma. Like, if you smashed their head into the bus window, took their phone and transferred all their money (via venmo or whatever), then tossed the phone out the window, they might change their mind about being a public irritant. Maybe. They might also take some other lesson instead. But either way you'd go to jail for several crimes, so probably don't do that.
We as a society have given up on doing literally anything to shame or punish people who are rude selfish assholes. In fact a large contingent of society seems to celebrate selfishness now. Considering how your actions impact others is something I feel like capitalism has destroyed by showing the world that the only thing you should value is getting ahead by any means necessary, just pretend your actions have no consequences and sell your soul and you too can definitely never be rich too. I truly believe seeing this play out in real life for our entire lives has just shown people considering other people is a recipe to be worse off than being selfish. Capitalism is a plague.
That's was pisses me off ever since I started to go by train instead of my car for environmental reasons to work. Like what happend that people don't understand the general politeness anymore. We used to be gentle to each other and that means that I don't force other people to listen to my videos as well.
The last time a young mother gave her little 3 year old child an iPad to watch videos. I'm not sure what pissed me off the most, that it was with sound or that the mother gave an iPad to her kid, because it's well studied how bad phones and tablets influence kids.
I wish I could by train to work. I honestly wouldn't even mind the noise if I had the option to take a train. I bring my noise cancelling headphones everywhere so I doubt I would even hear it.
Noise cancelling bluetooth headphones are so awesome. I also use them all the time. It was just one day where I forgot them and it was a very bad day to not have them with me
Not Apples biggest fan, but do love that so many people use their earbuds. I noticed a big shift in people using them versus blaring their music and videos on public transit.
I was in a train replacement coach the other week, and sitting behind me were some guys who were watching YT Shorts or TikTok (Probably the latter) over speakers. I didn't have my own earphones with me, so I had to hear his shit the whole way through.
If I was any sharper, I would have asked: "What gives you the confidence that any random person nearby appreciates what you're hearing?"
It's not even hard to carry them anymore, it's not like we even have to deal with wires. A 10 minute bus ride it's still just easier to pull out my earbuds and pop them in
Let's be real, teenagers are always assholes. There's a lot of social pressure for teens to be assholes. Look at any teen movie for example, the plot is pretty much always about how adults are wrong about everything and how freeing yourself to be more of an asshole (and generally louder in every way) is the way to go.
Everybody has different ears and their brains process sound differently. What might not seem very bad and chill to you can be extremely disturbing to somebody else and vice versa. It's no one's fault, life just sucks sometimes. Be considerate within reason.
I do often wear them with nothing playing, but even that impacts my situational awareness, which is even more impacted if I put music on.
I don't want to be listening to music, a podcast, etc., right now, I just want to hear the low, white noise of the environment. This is especially applicable when out in nature.
Yes, It IS a public space. It’s not just YOUR space.
you owe all of us a lot of tax money that went into making that space meant for everyone. Not just you alone.
There’s your discussion as far as anyone doesn’t owe you one.
narcissistic sociopath: A narcissistic sociopath is someone who exhibits traits of both narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). They may have an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a lack of regard for others, and a tendency to manipulate others to get what they want
At least your sink hole can be blocked online easier these days.
Movie theaters are public spaces. Do you do that in movie theaters while the movie is playing? How about libraries? How about a cemetery during a burial?
Nope I'm there for the movie. Libraries are there for reading and studying. Cemeteries are there for grieving family and friends. I consider those things to be an event that occupies my attention.
If I'm in a public space without something that should occupy my attention, I'll listen to my discussion-based audio however I wanna.
What a bunch of misanthropes. If you want silence wear earplugs.
I like to live in the world with people and people loooove music. And they love their family going on with gossip. And animal videos. And cartoons and soap operas. And people talking about the love of god. They love watching baseball. Etc.
The one time I can ever recall being annoyed was some guy watching video about covid conspiracies. I thought about arguing with him but I just got up and moved to another part of the train stop.
People's speakers aren't that good, you can easily escape the sound by moving if it is so bothersome. Or, learn to enjoy the company of people who differ from you rather than pretending there is some virtue in being a narrow minded jerk. Life is better.