Is it also really annoying for you to see people walking around in public and talking (apparently) to themselves, but while they are with one of their friends who is doing the same thing?
I really don't see the difference between me talking to a friend in public when they are next to me, at the end of a phone call mediated by a handset, or a phone call mediated by a bluetooth headset. The volume of my speech is the same in all three cases, so I have to assume some people are upset that they cannot listen to both sides of my conversation, and become annoyed with the phone/headset scenarios when they are unable to eavesdrop?
First, I find that most people (including myself) talk louder on the phone or headset than to an adjacent person. I attribute it to a combination of lousy acoustics and a lack of visual cues. If you talk at the same volume, maybe you just have a better phone or headset than most people.
Second, I don't think it's a matter of eavesdropping; rather, it seems harder to ignore a half-conversation than a full one, because the latter is normal and expected. Maybe we will eventually become habituated, and in another 10 years we will all be walking around talking to our glasses, watches, or whatever, automatically ignoring each other.
I really don't see the difference between me talking to a friend in public when they are next to me, at the end of a phone call mediated by a handset, or a phone call mediated by a bluetooth headset. The volume of my speech is the same in all three cases, so I have to assume some people are upset that they cannot listen to both sides of my conversation, and become annoyed with the phone/headset scenarios when they are unable to eavesdrop?