Re: Annoyance of cell phone use in public spaces

[Pieter Jan <pj.stallen@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hannes Muesch" <hmuesch@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 11:32 PM
Subject: Annoyance of cell phone use in public spaces


Hannes Muesch wrote: ...overhearing a face-to-face conversation happens much
less frequently and when it does it seems much less annoying...

In general,  annoyance by man-made noise (if that is what we wish to
understand) always is a matter of both acoustical and non-acoustical
factors. The latter are profoundly social: You expose Me. Thus, in addition
to the many suggestions Muesch himself already offered on the significance
of acoustical factors such as louder speak, I think the comparison of
similarly loud conversations by phone vs. in real will reveal that some of
us do consider private telephone use to be a brutal invasion of what once
was public realm, and therefore annoying.

Anyhow, I would be interested in any further studies on the subject.

Prof Pieter Jan Stallen
Aaron Wildavsky Chair
University of Leiden
_________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp