Mind your volume please!

All right! What is with people speaking loudly on their phones?? No, I don’t get it…I simply don’t. Is it a desperate need to get attention or is that people simply don’t realize that they are loud?

I have often wondered why people tend to be so loud on the phone. I remember when we were younger; it used to be a great thrill to get phone calls from my uncle who lived abroad. Considering the phone connections used to be very bad those days, it was but natural that my grandparents had to raise their voices to make sure that their son heard them well. But twenty years later, I refuse to accept that technology can be blamed for people speaking loudly on their phones. Things have got so bad nowadays that when a phone rings in my vicinity, I fear that I will become a part of somebody’s intimate discussions without wanting to be part of it.

I distinctly remember my hostel days, when we used to get calls from our parents only once in a while, and we used to be particularly happy when we got one. So there I had an excited friend who received a call from her mother after a long time. It was natural that she spoke to her for a long time asking her about her health, the weather there and what was for dinner that night. The reason that I knew what the conversation was like is not because she told me about it, but simply because I heard her while she was on the phone. I guess its always a little difficult to have private conversations in a hostel, but the I swear I was not trying to invade her privacy….I was on the second floor watching television, while she was two floors below in the common area!!!

I have always tried to keep it low when I am on phone, fearing that I might disturb others around me. But it upsets me a lot when I don’t get the same degree of concern from others. Adam Smith in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments” said that “ we put ourselves in the position of a vicarious spectator and tune our behaviour to the pitch that we know from our experience will seem appropriate to others.” Forget tuning once behaviour, people are not even ready to tune their pitches for other people. Why is it that people have absolutely no respect for others? This sort of behaviour irks me the most when I am in the library trying to study (yes, a very rare activity, but not an extinct one!). So instead of trying to figure out as to how New Keynesian economics is different from new classical, I am forced to listen to the work schedule of the girl sitting on the next table or the guest list to one’s thanksgiving dinner.

Ok, lets assume that people are not concerned about other people, therefore they don’t have any problems being loud on the phone. But don’t they have respect for their own privacy at least??? I mean I have no particular interest in knowing how one’s date last night ended or did not end. I have no desire to know the recipe for pumpkin pie or by how much the stock prices of Microsoft has gone up. So, here I am peacefully reading a book in the confines of my own house, when I suddenly hear my neighbour across the lane talking on the phone to his parents and asking them for some more money. By the end of the phone call, I had a complete knowledge of the boy’s financial situation and that he was going to receive an additional five hundred dollars that month! Hmmm….maybe its time to make a new friend! ;)