Last updated April 12, 2019
The ubiquity of used cell phones in all of our lives has given way to a new form of annoyance – cell phone rudeness. A new survey commissioned by cell phone giant Nokia has found that cell phones – or rather, the behavior of some of their owners – are annoying people in all kinds of irksomely interesting ways.
The most irritating of all cell phone behaviors – scoring top of the annoyance list with 21.48 percent of respondents to the survey citing it as their biggest personal bugbear – was people who use their cell phones to play games, watch movies or listen to music in public but do so with the sound blaring out at full volume on speakers rather than doing it quietly on their headphones.
The second most irritating habit – scoring 20.89 percent of the vote – also concerns the volume level, though not so much of the cell phone itself but of the person using it. Strangers who carry on a private conversation loud enough for everyone in the room or the street to hear really irritates people, the survey found.
The third place in the list of annoying cell phone habits, with 17.49 percent of the vote, went to people who start using their cell phones – whether to talk or send text messages – while in a movie theatre.
Other irritations on the list include people who start checking their messages while talking to someone and people who take photos of others on their cell phone and then upload it to the internet without their permission.