Pardon me for going out of topic...

"At least 36 per cent of the population are too self-absorbed -- or too stupid -- to notice that they're pissing everyone else off"

This made me think of the latest events in international politics and diplomacy. Sorry, I really love american people, but sometimes they can't see how they're "pissing everyone else off"!

Of course this is ment for the little man, the politicians... Well, they KNOW why they're "pissing everyone else off"...

Really, this is affectionate criticism...

Bye,

M

I have a tendency to overcompensate and mumble into my cell phone.

I alternate between screaming into my phone then suddenly realizing what I'm doing and whispering.

I think this is a larger issue than cellphones, frankly. I just bought my first car and I drive in Boston, and every time someone cuts me off or uses the fact that I actually stop at stop signs as a license to not stop or turns left as soon as their light turns green, I ponder the related thought: how often do *I* do stuff like this without noticing? Presumably, the person who cut me off didn't actually realize I was there. By definition, that means if *I* cut someone off, I'd have no awareness of doing it. It's exactly the same problem as yelling into your cellphone; barring feedback (angry honking) or awareness (consciously talking softly into your phone), your default mode is discourtesy just through lack of feedback. When was the last time you told someone they were too loud on the phone rather than just turning down the volume? Clive, your point about physical awareness of the phone is well-taken, but good ergonomic design involves building in feedback so you know you are doing the right thing (like the little beeps at an ATM as you enter numbers). Unfortunately, while I could see putting little visual volume monitors into phones, I'm not sure how to work on Boston drivers...

Hmmmm, good point the need to build in feedback to create a dynamic loop. There's got to be a way to do that with mobile phones. I wonder if you could make the voice in the earpiece massively louder, whenever the user starts hollering? I.e. pipe a certain amount of the speaker's voice back into his/her own earpiece, so that they're subtly (or even not-so-subtly) instantly faced with the fact that they're talking more loudly?

As to the point about your driving, that's really interesting! It reminds me of an argument that some economists have about the "tragedy of the commons" problem. Traditionally, economists used to assume that the tragedy of the commons -- in which a common good is ruined when individuals begin over-exploiting the commons -- was intentional: The individuals were rational actors who looked at the nice green public-property field, realized they could graze their sheep there for free, and hauled the entire herd out to denude the plains in a single evening. (i.e. they'd think to themselves, "hey, cool, a free field ... I better plunder it before anyone else gets here.") But later on, economists began wondering whether people were simply being self-obsessed idiots -- and simply not even noticing that they were screwing things up for other people. (i.e. "oooooo, look, a nice field! I'm going to bring my sheep over to this lovely field!")

In a sense, public peace and quiet is a common good -- something that can be maintained if we all act nicely, or ruined quite easily by a few people quite easily. And there's no question that it's regularly ruined by blowhard with mobile phones. The question is, are they doing so intentionally (i.e. with the full knowledge that they're ruining peace and quiet for others), or just narcistically (i.e. because they're doughheads who aren't thinking about what they're doing?)

The former cannot be dealt with by improved ergonomic design; it's about active hostile intent, and you could only eradicate it by making "talking on a phone loudly in public" a crime with a fine. The latter, however, could be dealt with by improved ergonomic design -- i.e. a phone that gives you feedback about how obnoxious you're being.

That's an excellent linkage to the 'tragedy of the commons' - that public quiet is a common good, easily destroyed. And man, it still makes me laugh that it's a relatively new concept in economics that people aren't rational (gee, ya *think*?).

I think there are always going to be narcissistic blowhards who think that everyone is interested in their loudly-discussed lives (or that shaving 0.5 s off their commute is worth endangering others), and you're right, there's nothing we can really do about them. But surely the vast number of people are just oblivious, and some good feedback might help. On trains and buses, there is often a polite initial reminder to speak quietly; I'd like to think that this gradually going to be extended into other public spheres as everyone gets used to talking on their cellphones in public and internalizes the need to keep their conversations down.

Nice site. thx.