Richard Cohen (Washington Post) speaks for many of us when he excoriates people who speak too loudly while using a cell phone in public spaces.
Months later I was on a bus, and a young man was talking loudly on his cell phone. He was making plans for the evening -- who would meet whom and where. It was a tedious, boring conversation, and I feel, against all expectation, that if you must talk loudly, you have a minimal obligation to be interesting.
Mostly, other peoples' conversations are not interesting, just annoying. Turns out that Finnish social scientist Dr. Timo Kopomaa came up with the phrase "privatizing the public space" to describe the phenomenon.
Nothing's changed, but at least now we have a good label.
9:18:21 AM 
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