Elon Bust
Active Member
Sometimes I wonder if between around 2015 and 2021 I was transported to a parallel universe without knowing. I remember the early days of mass mobile phone ownership: people used to hold the phone up to their ear to speak to the person on the other end. Nobody else could hear the other end of that conversation. There was this function we called 'speaker phone', which seemed to be confined to niche situations such as consumer affairs programmes. Dominic Littlewood or Matt Allwright would sit at the table and phone a up a dodgy builder or plumber but, little would he know, his words were captured by a TV camera crew.
Then, somewhere along the second decade of the twenty-first century, something changed. I started seeing people standing around in public places, holding their phones horizontally, lengthways from their mouths. Did I miss the government announcement saying it was illegal to keep the speaker phone off when you receive a call? Now, the genie is so long out of the bottle, the bottle has been smashed the pieces at the bottom of the bottle bank. It's as if mobile phones have no function other than speaker phone.
Recently I was trying to enjoy a cappuccino in my local, independent coffee outlet. A man in his seventies took a call from a woman who sounded similar in age. He was holding the phone reasonably close to his face but kept it on speaker anyway. It was disgraceful. I had to sit through a ten-minute conversation about whether or not Morrisons was a good supermarket. I heard every word the woman said in response, each take more mind-numbingly asinine than the last.
I am thirty-three years old. I remember when nobody did this at all, and now everybody does it everywhere. Why aren't people self-conscious about broadcasting private conversations at such a loud volume? What the hell happened?
Then, somewhere along the second decade of the twenty-first century, something changed. I started seeing people standing around in public places, holding their phones horizontally, lengthways from their mouths. Did I miss the government announcement saying it was illegal to keep the speaker phone off when you receive a call? Now, the genie is so long out of the bottle, the bottle has been smashed the pieces at the bottom of the bottle bank. It's as if mobile phones have no function other than speaker phone.
Recently I was trying to enjoy a cappuccino in my local, independent coffee outlet. A man in his seventies took a call from a woman who sounded similar in age. He was holding the phone reasonably close to his face but kept it on speaker anyway. It was disgraceful. I had to sit through a ten-minute conversation about whether or not Morrisons was a good supermarket. I heard every word the woman said in response, each take more mind-numbingly asinine than the last.
I am thirty-three years old. I remember when nobody did this at all, and now everybody does it everywhere. Why aren't people self-conscious about broadcasting private conversations at such a loud volume? What the hell happened?
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