I now know what is cooking in someone else’s kitchen tonight. I know which cousin has offended which aunt in a family inheritance quarrel. I know which colleague has betrayed which office friend. And, occasionally, I also know things about people’s marital desires that no stranger should ever be compelled to hear.

This knowledge comes while sitting in hospital waiting areas, temple courtyards, airport lounges, and inside packed public transport coaches. It arrives through the most democratic invention of our time—the mobile phone—on full volume and proudly on loudspeaker mode.

Are you a loudcaster?

We have long known the loudmouth. Now we have the loudcaster. The ‘loudcaster’ is that irritating citizen who treats the mobile phone not as a communication device but as a portable public address system. The phone speaker explodes with the energy of a political rally. What should have been a quiet exchange between two people or a video or music that someone is to watch in private becomes a broadcast generously shared with every unwilling listener within earshot.

It is a peculiar form of exhibitionism. The loudcaster believes they are minding their own business. The uncomfortable truth is that they have made their business everyone else’s problem.

Public spaces turned into private broadcasts

The experience is most vivid inside the dense machinery of mass public spaces that millions rely on every single day. The early morning local train ride already contains enough drama without needing additional soundtracks. Yet, somewhere between two stations, a phone........

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