Why do some people play their phones out loud on buses and trains? | Hacker News Reader

Why do some people play their phones out loud on buses and trains?

rte.ie

41 pointsaustinallegro25 comments

There are a million reasons why shaming someone can be bad. Ultimately, who am I to judge how people dress or decorate their bodies, so long as it doesn't harm me?

But when some asshole on the bus is yammering his sex life at high volumes, I think we've swung too far in the other direction. There's a time and place for public shaming, and being on a commute-time bus meets those requirements.

What is harm? If people do dangerous activities and expect our socialized medicine to pay for it when they get injured, does that harm me? Is increasing my taxes a harm?

You alright there?

All medical treatment should go before a judge and jury, with prosecution and defence making cases for payment and non-payment of medical bills under socialised healthcare.

Obvious /s

It's interesting how different standards for behavior on public transit are over there compared to the US. The €100 fine for playing music out loud introduced by Irish Rail sounds heavenly. Here in Dallas, half the trains I get on have someone openly smoking (cigarettes, weed, meth) on them and the rare transit security officers supposed to be doing something about it are the ones playing loud videos on their phones!

I wonder what an actual survey would yield. This article is “What do people imagine is the reason why some people play their phones out loud on buses and trains?”

And I suppose that’s neat for hypothesis generation but I think a few minutes thought could come up with all of these. Perhaps next time I will try to politely ask. Wish me luck. Hope I don’t get stabbed.

Here’s my extra hypothesis: some people actually don’t know what’s going on - they stop at the top of the escalator and look around; they stand in the middle of the aisle with their shopping cart blocking it; and they don’t have a clue that the TV volume is high

Tragedy of the commons which is a symptom of lack of common culture. That is, since not everyone has been raised under the same culture and norms, there will be misunderstandings about what is acceptable. More regulation and fines[0] to solve what is mostly an educational problem seems unfortunate

0. From TFA: In the UK, the Liberal Democrats proposed legislation that would make playing content out loud a fineable offence of up to £1,000.

Tragedy of the commons is separate, and I think a more serious issue. If the only problem is clashing cultures, a firm warning would suffice. However, people who have more or less the same culture may still perpetrate the tragedy of the commons, and I think culture is not much of a factor. Tragedies of the commons occur when people do not see or care how their individual actions affect the collective.

I've had to answer a urgent phone call on a bus once (on headphones) and I felt bad about that.

I don't understand how can you even think this is ever acceptable.

However, same as the 54% mentioned in the article I won't ask them, but for a different reason: noise canceling headphones means unless someone is playing a concert, it won't bother me.

Phone microphones are generally pretty good. You don't need to shout or even talk loudly into them. Usually talking quieter than a normal conversation will be easily picked up by the phone's microphone.

As long as you talk at an appropriate level, there is no need to feel bad.

Basic lack of consideration, or, no penalty being an asshole.

These people playing their phones out loud on the buses and trains have one similarity we're not allowed to say, that answers why.

There is not a mention to the deprecation of 3.5mm audio port by the largest manufacturers.

I mean, a couple of people and I are in this situation, more or less. Corded headphones were cheaper, didn't require pairing and didn't have rechargeable batteries; they either worked fine or didn't work.

Extremely good point! Another theory I have is that the ipad generation has grown up and they're now out unattended in public.

Your point about corded headphones being cheaper could mean that this is just a result of poorer people using public transit

its a form of exhibitionism, its a disturbance, but probably not loud enough to be criminal. it can be very distracting to the bus driver especially if there are a lot of sounds like traffic, im sure thats criminal in most municipalities.

There is often a touch of intimidation with it too, daring you to challenge them.

This. Its a dominance move. Loosers disturbing working citizens to signal status in the streetcred hierarchy.

It's entirely about this

It's a form of social domination, the people that do this are literal animals

We're all literal animals.

People (often young people and music fans) have been using sound to claim their own public space (while alienating and exiling others from it) since the days of boom boxes, of transistor radios, and probably earlier.

But the sharp, piercing tone of tin(n)y (and somehow super-amplified) phone speakers, playing particularly grating videos or loud video calls, all at max volume, seems optimized for maximum irritation. And it's often adults, who presumably would not usually shout but are nonetheless talking very loudly into their max volume facetime calls.

I would probably find it annoying if everyone walked around listening to sports games on small radios, but it is a rare occurrence so I tend to be more surprised that sports radio (not to mention AM radio itself) still exists.

> Earlier this year, Irish Rail introduced new etiquette guidelines and a €100 fine for playing music or videos out loud on trains

I am moving to Ireland immediately.

Wait, are they also banning loud FaceTime calls? Please say yes.

Once again we have to legislate basic courtesy due to a tiny minority of the population being unable to function around others.

It sucks that 90% of our rules are made to control < 3% of the population.

Maybe they're p-zombies.

Because they’re sociopaths

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