P is for Public-Private Conversations: A case of TMI?

The advent of mobile phones and the digital world has meant radical changes to the way we communicate. There is no doubting the speed and convenience that are now at our finger tips. Global barriers have been pulled down, but so to it seems privacy barriers.

I'm not talking here about Internet security or digital privacy issues. The type of privacy I am talking about is those private conversations which used to take place behind closed doors only amongst family members or trusted friends.

In the digital world, a lot of people now seem comfortable in spilling the intimate details of their lives across the Net. Some might say that's not a bad thing. It has meant more open discourse and we have all felt the relief in knowing that we are not alone with a problem. In that context any reader who is uncomfortable with the material can click off the page and never return.

Not so in the mobile phone world. Particularly on public transport where everybody is forced to share common space for a while. It is not common to travel on a bus after work only to find there are at least half a dozen phone conversations taking place around you. In most cases, you only hear one side of the conversation but you can sort of reconstruct the other half from the context. At these times I feel like an uninvited interloper. There is no physical escape, the conversation has been foist upon me. Tuning out is impossible because there is something about talking on a phone on public transport that means the talker has to automatically speak LOUDER than she otherwise might. And we are not just talking about brief two minute conversations, but conversations that go on for the whole 45 minutes of the journey.

Do I really need to now how Jan got together with Peter at the club and that Jan is a two faced so and so? Do I really need to know how bad your client or boss treated you today? And any medical problems or family problems are definitely a case of TMI. People wouldn't make these disclosures by shouting them into a crowded room at a social gathering. Why on public transport?

Are we really so time poor or intolerant of any state of lack of stimulation that means these conversations can't wait until the speaker has reached home? Is convenience really more important than propriety? Is the conversation really one that cannot be had by text?

The boundaries around privacy in the digital world move at lightening pace. It seems they have all but disappeared in the mobile world. Maybe I'm old fashioned. Maybe, the Gen Y "need to know right now" attitude coupled with the Gen Y "I will do it because I have nothing better to do for the next twenty minutes and can't possible site idle" attitude is the way of the future. Maybe Gen X will be caught snoozing and losing in the depths of their own privacy.

Have you ever had to endure listening to a highly private conversation whilst on public transport?