February 19, 4:09 am
Are you courteous when you use your cell phone?
What’s your cell phone courteousness factor? A few years back Sprint Wireless released some survey results on cell phone usage. Amazingly, 97 percent of those surveyed classify themselves as “very courteous” or “somewhat courteous” when they use a cell phone.
But in an even more amazing contradiction, 80 percent of those same survey respondents said that they felt other people were “less than courteous” when using a cell phone.
Let’s paint a picture with that data.
Using ten people to represent the results, 97 percent (9.7 people) is pretty much all ten people. So in a lineup of 10 people, all of them would say that they were very courteous or somewhat courteous when they used their cell phones.
But the second statistic is where it gets interesting.
Eight of these self-described very courteous or somewhat courteous cell phone users will point to the others in that same row and say that they were being less than courteous in their cell phone use.
What gives?
Plain and simple – people are unaware of how they sound when they’re on the phone. And many think they have to talk loud. But they don’t have to.
I’ve actually done some experiments with this. While on layovers in various airports, I talked to different people on my cell phone using different speaking volumes for each call – on purpose. I would then ask a person seated near me if they were able to hear what I was saying. To minimize the possibility of ‘politeness error,’ I told them upfront what I was doing.
Guess what? When I talked softly enough so nobody around me could hear my words, the caller on the other end could still hear me just fine (I’d asked them if they could hear me, and they’d always answer “just fine,” but I did not tell them what I was doing).
My point is this — pay attention to the “courteous” factor while on your cell phone. This goes beyond not using your phone during luncheons or meetings. Believe it or not, people will still be able to hear you just fine if you speak softly!
PS. I REALLY hope the guy who was seated next to me on Northwest Flight 1279 is taking notes on this.
Filed in Technology, Work, Workplace, Corporate Culture
Dan - survey’s like these never fail to amaze me. The results are always similar, the majority of respondents place themselves in the “favorable” category and place the majority of others in the “unfavorable” category.
I couldn’t help but think of a recent survey of managers where 90% placed themselves in top 10% of managers within their organization.
Human nature I guess…
Chris Young
The Rainmaker Group