Science says: why we find people talking on the train so annoying

Recently, I wrote a piece about the things we like to do when we are on the train. One of my favorite activities from this list is eavesdropping on conversations, or better said: listening in. Nothing is more entertaining than participating incognito in a juicy conversation between people on the train, while you are happily sipping from your Starbucks cup.

What I find incredibly annoying, however, are people who are on the phone in the train. Don't ask me why, but I find them real disruptors. They distract me and often talk incredibly loud. I feel this irritation also in the supermarket or other public places where people are allowed to call. But why do I get so annoyed by this?

For this, I naturally delved into some research and apparently, I am not the only one who is bothered by this. This research that has been published in the journal Plos One explains that an overheard phone conversation distracts us more and that we remember it much better than an overheard conversation between two people. The researchers instructed their subjects to perform a task, where it was important that they concentrated. As part of the study, voices were heard in the background while performing the task. Some heard someone talking on the phone and others heard two people talking to each other. Naturally, the subjects did not know that this noise in the background was part of the study.

After completing the task, the subjects had to indicate to what extent the background noise had distracted them and what they had picked up from the conversation. They were also shown words and had to indicate whether they had heard those words in the background conversation. It emerged that the subjects found the phone conversation much more distracting than a regular conversation. They also remembered the content of the phone conversation better.

But how can this be explained? According to researcher Rosa Vessal, we need extra attention when overhearing a phone conversation to understand the unpredictable content of the conversation. Because we do not know where the conversation is going, phone calls distract us so much. I must say: I actually find that a pretty logical explanation. After all, we miss all the reactions of the conversation partner, so we have to fill that in ourselves a bit.