SHHH! Mobile Conversations

There is a piece in Wired about the Society for Handheld Hushing (SHHH).

Apparently, this guy’s [Jim Coudal] wife [Heidi] was fed up with mobile users “yapping” away into their phones in public spaces.

Now I would be the first to admit that there are some places in which a mobile conversation is inappropriate; however, I would venture to say that in any of those cases a normal conversation (non-mobile, physical) would also be inappropriate.

Here is my point: If I were on the bus or in a store standing in-line or at a table in a restaurant and there is someone participating in a mobile conversation why should one feel they need to “Shhh” them? What if that person was not on the phone, but was speaking with someone physically near them? Perhaps that person could be the person they are speaking to on the phone.

Would you ever think that it would be OK to lean over and tell two people to “Shhh” their conversation?

Well, you might if they were bit too loud or the content of their conversation was offensive…but otherwise would you feel compelled to even notice them? Probably not, because we are used to people speaking in groups around us all the time. So what is the big deal with someone in the same setting speaking to someone who is not there?

I do not think there is any one answer to this question but I think the main parts are these:

1. Some people speak way too loudly into their mobile phone. True, it is required to get the message across on some handhelds/networks nowadays, but more often than not, someone speaking too loudly into their mobile phone is just simply speaking too loudly
2. People just are not accustom to perceiving the rights of a conversation when only one party is present. When you have two people disposed in conversation it is a bit more difficult to approach them and say “Shhh” simply because they are two people and you may be only one and therefore the majority is against you. However, when you are by yourself and you see someone equally by themselves it may be easier to pretend that even though they are on the phone with another person they are one person bothering you, thus its easy to focus the blame and further muster the will to “Shhh” them

I am not sure if I am dead-on with the above, but I have a feeling a I am quite close. If people would learn to speak in a more social acceptable tone into their mobile phone and/or upgrade so that this is possible as well as observe the other socially unacceptable places to have a conversation (ie: during a speech) then their should be nothing that distinguishes a mobile conversation from a normal conversation save for the invisible party.

Anyway, SHHH’s Heidi had the idea of creating little cards as a subtle way of telling people to “Shhh” on their phones. Now while I applaud the novelty of the idea and the look of the cards (they look clean and are quite funny) I would have to say that if anyone handed me on of these as a sign that I should stop my mobile conversation, I might have to provide them with a sign of my own which is equally novel yet much much older…

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