I am astonished how many people now use speakerphone as their default interaction. On subway, go train, in grocery stores, on the streets, sometimes even in the office, they blast their conversations with zero care.

And so yes, I've definitely seen and experienced people watching inane tiktoks on speaker in subway or bus or airplane. It's the epitome of complete lack of empathy or self awareness to me, but I guess that's the way culture is going.

In America, a small number of people derive pleasure from being disruptive to everybody, and blasting music on public transit with captive audiences is a very "traditional" way of fucking with people and expressing your broad contempt for their society. I'd estimate that maybe one in five times you get on a city bus in America, you'll encounter somebody like this.

Very rarely does anybody call them out or otherwise try to reign it in, because you're as likely as not to be physically attacked and in America, the odds of bystanders coming to your rescue are... Not zero, but not great.

It is - there are three groups of people that do this generally the completely self absorbed, people from places where it’s culturally acceptable, and people that like the feeling of empowerment that comes from inconveniencing others (the same people that will walk out into traffic with no light / crosswalk)

> I never been in a flight, or train across Europe where passengers showed just lack of respect for the others.

In my European travels I’ve definitely seen it. It depends entirely on the region. Europe is a big place. I’ve encountered it in Asian countries too. Again, Asia is huge and diverse.

Not coincidentally, it’s the same in the United States. I’ve never seen this on the local commuter train with people traveling to and from work. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it on a flight (flight attendants did intervene and request they stop).

Let’s not try to make this into another “America bad” topic because this is not a uniquely American problem.

Last time I flew my family was very early to the gate; it was me, my wife, my 5 and 3 year old girls, and a very elderly lady in a wheelchair who was blasting Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” from her phone speakers.

I was on a 2 hour flight this week. The guy in front of me listened to a political podcast on speaker that was loud enough it cut through my noise cancelling earbuds. There was absolutely no chance I was risking my safety calling him out on it in that scenario.

> usually get quickly pointed down by other passengers, personnel or security

I’ve never, not once, heard a member of staff ask someone to use headphones on transport.

I've experienced it all over Europe. Trains with reserved seats tend to have a separate "silent car" for this reason.

I am already embarassed when my headphone jack slips and everyone can hear a targeted ad putting me on blast. To do so intentionally never occured to me. It would be mortifying.

That's because in Europe certain demographics don't catch many planes or trains. But they do catch the tube or the bus, so get on one of those and enjoy the experience.

From what I can tell, if no rule is enforced, about 2-5% of people think it's totally normal to scroll tiktok or instagram at full volume in public.

So on a crowded bus you've normally got 1 or 2. Behavior is actually much better on airplanes, usually (maybe 1-2 in ~150 passenger plane), and I have never seen someone who did not silence their phone after being asked politely by the attendant.

It's a thing everywhere except very well-behaved places/countries. This means it's almost everywhere.

The last time I had an uncle blast his Doujin feed at full volume next to me, I suggested he lower the volume, he didn't care, so I blasted my own feed at louder volume. He got it then. Sadly people a few rows back did the same on the next train...

I can't remember the last time I've been on a flight, train, or bus where there wasn't at least one person playing audio of some sort without headphones.

Very much a thing and one of the many reasons I'm becoming more of a recluse, shared public spaces are becoming rather unpleasant. Mostly in the US and LatAm, a fair amount in the UK, not so much in Germany.

On planes I've mostly seen it with people playing stuff for very young children.

I've heard a lot of Cocomelon crap at full volume on planes because I guess parents don't want to have their kids use headphones. I sort of understand it but at the same time I also think it's pretty inconsiderate for the rest of the people on the flight who likely do not want to listen to their kid's awful YouTube show.

In the NYC subway I've seen dozens of people who will blast their terrible music very loudly with a bluetooth speaker. These are full-grown adults. I don't know why they do that, I suspect it would sound better on the train with headphones. Maybe it's some form of evangelism, where they think the music is utterly fantastic that everyone should listen to it.

it's usually some guy on the neighbouring table at McDonald's

I've definitely experienced this on public transit in cities in several different countries here in Europe. It's not an everyday experience, but it definitely happens.

My experience is the opposite. People blast music or other sounds on flights all the time. In Europe it's also very common to smoke in public, including beaches, restaurants, areas around building entrances. Literring is also very common.

Even Switzerland is dirty because cigarette buts are everywhere. It's just that some % of the population are inconsiderate assholes and only heavy enforcement works vs than. Unfortunately this is something our current society is not willing to do.

Local trains are full of them.

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