Why do we get annoyed by people who make phone calls in public

By M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

Why do people who use the phone in public annoy us

Unknown Guy: Hey Jason
Unknown Guy: yes, yes
Unknown Guy: OK, i will bring it
Unknown Guy: I told Susan already
Unknown Guy: What, why is that?

Sounds familiar huh? How many times you got annoyed by a person who uses his phone in public? How many times you were in a bus or public transportation then got frustrated by a person who is making a phone call?

Why do we get so annoyed by the those people even though in most cases we won't care who they are or what they do?

How would you feel like if you were totally full then i put smelly food that you don't like in front of you, won't you feel annoyed? of course you will because i am forcing you to see and smell something that you don't like.

Any extra information we receive through our senses is a cognitive burden (puts load on your brain and force it to work more) that's why any extra unwanted information can easily make us irritated. (see also How can words change your brain and life)

Now what about a call that you aren't interested in at all and that puts a high cognitive load on your brain?

Why we get more annoyed by Public calls than normal side conversations

But the important question you should have asked yourself is, why do we get more irritated by people who make phone calls in public than those who talk to each other normally?

When someone makes a phone call in public your brain gets confused because you can only hear one part of the conversation. As a result your brain has to do much more effort to guess what the other person is saying (even if you don't care about them both).

Because your brain has to do much more effort in such a case the public phone call irritates you so much.

Showing off through public phone calls

Another study has shown that some people raise their voice on intention when they make public phone calls just to show off in front of others. The study found that some people raise their voice by as much as 50% in order for others to hear them clearly.

Those people usually try to appear smart, wealthy and happy by sending messages to the people around them while acting as if they are just talking normally on the phone.

This makes the phone call even more annoying to the listener because after all who would be interested to listen to a person that he doesn't know talk about himself?

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