By Jenni Jones and Heather Sincich
When waiting in line to use a courtesy phone, it sometimes seems that the person on the phone talks longer than usual. It may not be your imagination. A study done by Daily Universe staff writers found people tend to talk longer when there is a line to use the phone.
BYU students talked an average of a minute longer on the courtesy phone when there are three people waiting in line when there is no wait at all. The more people there were in line, the longer they talked.
Professors from the psychology and sociology departments offered a variety of explanations for these results.
One explanation is that students who have waited longer in line feel they have the right to talk longer.
“I would imagine that they would have an investment from standing in line and would therefore feel free to talk as long as they wanted to,” said Phillip Kunz, professor of sociology.
Darhl M. Pederson, professor of psychology, said he has noticed people in long lines are in no hurry to get off the phone once they get on. He said a possible reason for this could be they feel they have paid their dues by standing in line and therefore deserve to talk longer.
Another explanation stems from the nature of the phone call. Students who are willing to wait in a line probably have an important call to make, said John Seggar, professor of sociology. This could make their phone call longer than usual because the more important the conversation is, the more information there probably is to convey.
Still another reason students talk longer when there is a line is they have control over the phone and are reluctant to give it up, said Robert D. Ridge, assistant professor of psychology. Even though the courtesy phones are public territory, the people who are using them have control over them. The courtesy phones temporarily become their own territory, and their use becomes a power issue, Ridge said.
According to a study by Robert Barry Ruback, Pennsylvania State University department of sociology, and Daniel Juin, Georgia State University, cars tend to leave a parking space slower if there are other cars waiting. This study, which was published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, was done under the theory people tend to be territorial. The people in the parked cars felt the parking space was their territory and were reluctant to give it up.
This study parallels the phone study because in both cases the subjects took longer using an area they were in control of when others were waiting.
The parking lot study noted people usually did not realize they took longer to leave a parking space if there was another car waiting. When interviewed, BYU students also did not think they talk longer when there are people waiting for the phone than if there was no line.
“I try to take less time when I know other people are waiting for the phone. I think it’s common courtesy,” said Amber Meager, 20, a junior from Sacramento, Calif., majoring in public relations.
One student said the frustration she experienced from standing in a long line did not affect how long she talked on the phone.
“If I’d been planning on making a long conversation, I would put it off till later, but most of the time it wouldn’t affect the length of the phone call,” said Keri Walkenhorst, 19, a sophomore from Lake Charles, La., majoring in pre-physical therapy.
Universe staff writers timed 65 phone conversations at BYU courtesy phones during a week. The reporters timed the conversations without the students’ knowledge by standing far enough away from the phone to go unnoticed.
If students did not have to wait in line, they talked an average of 59 seconds. When they had to wait to use the phone but there was no one waiting in line behind them, they talked an average of one minute and 11 seconds. People who waited in line and had one person waiting behind them talked an average of one minute and 15 seconds. People who waited for the phone with two people in line behind them talked an average of one minute and 36 seconds. If there were three people in line when a person began talking on the phone, the student talked an average of two minutes and eight seconds.
These calculations excluded the few phone conversations which were unusually long because they did not represent the typical length of the phone calls. Unusually high times would pull the average up, giving an inaccurate picture of the typical length of a phone conversation.
Pederson said the results could be due to chance although there are certainly trends in the statistics. He said a replica of the study yielding the same results would add credibility to the study.
The majority of the phone conversations were timed in the library. Phone conversations were also timed at the courtesy phones in the Jesse Knight Humanities Building, the Harris Fine Arts Center and the Smith Family Living Center.
The number of people waiting in line was determined at the beginning of the phone conversation being timed. This prevented the length of the phone call from being a factor in the length of the line. If someone talks longer, there is more time for the line to build up.
The person being timed was included in the number of people in line unless there was no wait when they got on the phone. If the person making the phone call did not have to wait in line, the number of people in line was considered to be zero.
The average time for a phone call when there were zero people in line was calculated from eleven phone conversations. The average with one person in line was also calculated from eleven phone calls, two people in line from 24 conversations, three people in line from 10 and four people in line from five.
