Having a conversation on a cell phone in a public area in a loud tone, is downright impolite and can be distracting even to others around.
Most often the talker is oblivious to what is happening around. There is enough research to show that talking on the mobile phone while driving can be dangerous as it can slow down reflexes.
Further, people have forgotten items from their shopping list or ended up doing half the things they set out to, simply because they got distracted talking on the cell phone and lost focus on their tasks.
A new study has found that talking on the cell phone in public can be called rude and distracting. Most often, onlookers remember these conversations for a long time to come, much more than conversations between two live people.
"This is the first study to use a realistic situation to show that overhearing a cell phone conversation is a uniquely intrusive and memorable event. We were interested in studying this topic since cell phone conversations are so pervasive and could impact bystanders to those conversations at work and in other settings of everyday life."
"Not knowing where the conversation is heading is what makes cell phone calls more distracting," added researchers.
It is time people focused on their jobs at hand, rather than carrying on a conversation parallely on the cell phone while doing important chores.