public/private space?

mobile phones again. what is going on? this morning the woman next to me on the tram had a 15 minute row with her boyfriend on the phone. she was pretty loud too. this lack of decorum (or shame?) has me wondering again about this odd quasi-private space that the phone tries to create. would she be having the same row with the boyfriend in person, or would it wait for a quiet spot in town or at home? i suspect it would. but on the phone there's no worry, all comes blurting out and at that extra-high 'phone voice volume' which seems to carry so much further than normal conversation.

what i still can't work out is what these people are thinking. do they think they're on the phone so it's a 'private' conversation despite the volume and location. or do they use the phone as an excuse for exhibitionism, big-brother contestant syndrome on a small scale? or perhaps they don't think about it, so used to phones are we all that it's not an issue with them or with the rest of those present? the mobile brings a strange extension to the mentality of the phone, something which is still associated with a private linking of two homes, two people, for a chat.

there's definitely some interesting ideas here, but despite all this it's still fucking irritating. especially when the height of rhetoric is "at the end of the day you know what you done" over and over followed by "carry on carrying on then" virtually screamed into my ear as i try to go to my happy place.