Checking Your Phone In Public Is Much Ruder Than You Might Think

Using Your Phone In Public Is Much Ruder Than You Might Think

Go out of the office during lunch and the likelihood is that you're ironically entering a more socially isolated space than you were to begin with.

That's because literally everyone is checking their phones, or busy shouting at people who are checking their phones or sat in cafes amusingly watching people who are shouting at people who are checking their phones.

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Turns out that statistically, quite a lot of us find this behaviour really annoying.

A new study into the social attitudes to phone use in the US by the Pew Research Center has found that a lot of the things we think are OK in public, actually aren't that polite.

A massive 62 per cent said it was generally 'not OK' to use a phone in a restaurant, while over a quarter of those asked said it was not acceptable to use your phone while walking down the street.

Reassuringly we're not all totally lost, 88 per cent of those people asked in the US said it was not OK to use your phone during a family meal.

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This stock family think they're being 'modern', they clearly haven't read this study.

Oddly, using a phone during a meeting was actually considered even less OK with a massive 94 per cent saying that the practise was unacceptable.

The research is remarkably well-timed in fact as a study published today from Iowa State University has devised a test which shows whether you're addicted to your smartphone as a sufferer of 'Nomophobia'.

Caglar Yildirim, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student in human computer interaction, and Ana-Paula Correia, an associate professor in ISU's School of Education have coined the term to describe the fear that many people feel when they're without access to their smartphone.