The 7 most annoying mobile phone users

The 7 most annoying mobile phone users

Michael McIntyre had his comedy show ruined by one, but you don’t have to be famous to be irked by mobile phone users. We round up the worst culprits.

Comedian Michael McIntyre walked off stage during a gig in Darlington when a front-row audience member repeatedly used her mobile phone during his performance.

With just a faint whiff of irony, people quickly took to Twitter (presumably on their own mobile phones) to praise McIntyre for making a stand against the ‘idiot’ with the phone.

While 93% of adults in the UK might own a mobile, it doesn’t mean we love how other people use and abuse them, be it ruining someone’s jokes or committing any of these other telephonic faux pas…

The instant Googler

You start a conversation about anything from the weather or your dinner to IS or Ebola, and within seconds, your conversationee is busy grabbing their phone and shouting “look, there’s a blog/funny video/tweet about that” at you.

The novelty ringtone lover

There is a time and a place for ‘showing off your personality’ and your ringtone is not in. Because there is no reason for a ringing phone to sound like anything other than a ringing phone. None at all.

The withheld number-er

Privacy in the modern world is not really an option. One way or another, technology knows everything from your grocery shopping list to your shoe size, so hiding your phone number from people you already know (which is why you’re calling them in the first place) is edging a little towards ‘shutting the door after the horse has bolted’.

The map obsessive

Remember those dark days before Google Maps? The days when no one got where they wanted? When we all went somewhere new, panicked, slumped on the pavement and cried? Oh no wait, hang on. No we didn’t.

Because there were things called street signs, and people to ask for directions. And somehow, the combination of the two meant we still got where we wanted, we just didn’t stare at our mobiles and generally clutter up the nation’s pavements along the way.   

The trying-to-talk-in-a-tunnel-er

“I’m going into a tunnel so I’ll probably lose connection. Hello? Hello? Can you still hear me?” No they can’t. Because five seconds earlier, you acknowledged that you were going into a tunnel.

And that you’d probably lose connection. And now you have. Join the dots.

The restaurant insulter

A poll earlier this year revealed 12 million Brits thought someone checking their mobile during a meal was the most annoying dining habit, and it’s not hard to see why.

If you’ve bothered to give up an evening to spend time with someone, it’s not entirely unreasonable to expect them not to consider you more deserving of their attention than a four-inch slab of plastic.

The pocket dialler

You answer the phone. Silence. Footsteps. Muffled voices. A mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes? No, just someone who’s accidentally nudged the redial button. There is a lock button, by the way.