Mobile Phone Usage Patterns in Public Spaces
This morning I went to one of my favorite coffee shops in Seattle's Capitol Hill area, Caffé Vita. I really enjoy working in coffee shops, as the buzz and energy of other people conversing and thinking really seems to motivate me. I went to the upstairs area, which this at this early hour only had two other patrons. I like this early morning quietness as well, before the coffe has started working on my sleepy system.
I opened up a book to do some reading (A Designer's Research Manual by Jenn and Ken Visocky O'Grady), as the silence was broken by a harsh voice on the other side of the room. He must have come up right after me, and he was sitting facing the wall, clad in a blue fall jacket and beanie, speaking quite loudly on his cellphone.
Why is it, that face-to-face conversations help me focus, while cellphone conversations where only one party can be heard, pierces my wall of work-privacy and leaves me unable to concentrate on anything other than the others' conversation?
1. People speak louder than needed into handsets.
- This may be due to an affordance of the cellphone, remote communication, that reminds us of speaking to someone on the other side of a wide gorge.
- People are not suited to relate to two contexts at the same time. Speaking into a cellphone puts you in a certain headspace, an imagined privacy where there exists only two people. The environment around you fades away into the periphery. You lose track of which speaking volume is appropriate in the context you're actually in.
2. Conversation naturally happens between at least two people.
- Hearing someone talk when their conversation partner isn't visible, highlights their presence. Traditionally and stereotypically, only mad people speaks "to themselves".
Cell phones doesn't do anything to help tie physical, communal community bands, but reinforces the distant, networked, virtual community that exists within individuals. If we are to re-design community into our neighborhoods, we have to consider the usage patterns of cell phones in public spaces.
I opened up a book to do some reading (A Designer's Research Manual by Jenn and Ken Visocky O'Grady), as the silence was broken by a harsh voice on the other side of the room. He must have come up right after me, and he was sitting facing the wall, clad in a blue fall jacket and beanie, speaking quite loudly on his cellphone.
Why is it, that face-to-face conversations help me focus, while cellphone conversations where only one party can be heard, pierces my wall of work-privacy and leaves me unable to concentrate on anything other than the others' conversation?
1. People speak louder than needed into handsets.
- This may be due to an affordance of the cellphone, remote communication, that reminds us of speaking to someone on the other side of a wide gorge.
- People are not suited to relate to two contexts at the same time. Speaking into a cellphone puts you in a certain headspace, an imagined privacy where there exists only two people. The environment around you fades away into the periphery. You lose track of which speaking volume is appropriate in the context you're actually in.
2. Conversation naturally happens between at least two people.
- Hearing someone talk when their conversation partner isn't visible, highlights their presence. Traditionally and stereotypically, only mad people speaks "to themselves".
Cell phones doesn't do anything to help tie physical, communal community bands, but reinforces the distant, networked, virtual community that exists within individuals. If we are to re-design community into our neighborhoods, we have to consider the usage patterns of cell phones in public spaces.
posted by Per at
6:03 PM
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