|
Have you ever noticed how annoying it is listening to someone on his or her cell phone? "Really? No way! (other person talking) Well Tammy said that wasn't the case. (more silence,) No, no, we're going to other place. The waitress at the other spot was really slow." And it can go on for hours. Now scientists say that they might have discovered why listening to one half of a conversation is so frustrating. It turns out that our imaginations can't help filling in the blanks. And before you know it, you've just wasted 15 valuable minutes putting the pieces of meaningless puzzle together in your head.
Listening to one half a conversation drains more attention and concentration than overhearing two people talking, according to scientists at Cornell University.
"We have less control to move away our attention from half a conversation (or half-alogue) than when listening to a dialogue," Lauren Emberson, a co-author of the study that will be published in the journal Psychological Science, told Rueters news service in a recent interview.
"Since half-alogues really are more distracting and you can't tune them out, this could explain why people are irritated," she went on to say.
Another explanation is that unless you are the one on the phone, it can seem like everyone's wasting the day away with idle chit-chat and gossip.
Last year Americans spent 2.3 trillion minutes chatting on cellphones, according to the U.S. wireless trade association CTIA.
That's nine times higher than it was in 2000.
Worldwide, there are about 4.6 billion cellphone subscribers, according to the International Telecommunications Union.
The number is equal to about two-thirds of the world's population.
China has the most cellphone users with 634 million, followed by India with 545 million and the United States with 270 million, figures from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) show.
Emberson says that people can't help but try to make sense of snippets of conversation and predict what the speaker they can hear will say next.
"When you hear half of a conversation, you get less information and you can't predict as well," she said.
"It requires more attention." Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed