Trains. I love them. If you want to be nosey and have a look at what people are up to, they’re brilliant. Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been on quite a few, including a few trips to London and my own local city – Birmingham. In fact, I’m writing this on a train right now and, especially on the more crowded trains, it’s pretty easy to get a snapshot into other peoples’ lives.
How?
Well sure, you can look at how they’re dressed. A guy in a sharp suit wearing expensive shoes -he’s definitely on the way to London, probably for a meeting with someone important. The guy on my left in the shorts and hat is about to hop onto his bike. Meanwhile the man wearing a very long trench coat with flip-flops.. perhaps I should steer clear of.
However, most people are a little bored on trains and they’ll fill up this “dead time” by fiddling with a phone. This is what I use as my social barometer. It’s the usual stuff mostly. I expect a huge majority to be checking Facebook, and have seen this day in, day out. People have a real interest in others and I guess it’s just what I’m doing now -being nosey.
Twitter is another one, although it seems to be mostly men that check this. There’s more celebs hitting Twitter daily, so I do see more women using it now too. Looking around I see email accounts being checked, texts being sent and the odd person checking WhatsApp.
Sadly we’ve not got to the stage where people can watch TV shows on their journey to work though. The usual suspects, such as TVCatchup, BBC iPlayer, YouTube etc, they fail miserably as the train heads through yet another tunnel or dares to even pass through a field. People head instead to games like Angry Birds and Temple Run.
This last week though I’ve noticed something else appearing, and perhaps it’s a sign of our tight financial climate. The woman who was sitting next to me just now was playing on the Mecca Bingo app. Real money was being used here – I could see the balance on her account (yep, I’m that nosey) and she seemed to be enjoying herself quite a bit too. Bingo isn’t restricted to big halls and social events any longer, it’s on the 8.10 to Birmingham.
Am I alone? Am I the only nosey person? Also, I’d love to know what your “time killing” apps are. Do you head to TuneIn Radio to listen to your favourite station, or are you having a quick go on Cut the Rope?
About Leigh Geary
Editor / Founder of Coolsmartphone. I’m the one who films hands-on videos in the car. :) News, reviews, gossip – anything phone / tablet related – I love it.
Check out my blog on http://www.cupofcoffee.co.uk or follow me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/gears
