You can of course make calls while sitting, lying down or standing. But some people like to walk during a phone call. They unconsciously pace back and forth. Where does this desire to walk come from?
Make a phone call? Making steps
Walking around with a phone in hand may be because communication is abnormal, says neuroscientist Johannes Fahrenvoort of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. “When you talk to someone on the phone, you don't see that person,” Fahrenfurt explains. That's why you don't get any visual input from the conversation, even though your body is expecting it at that moment.
For the hundreds of thousands of years that we walked the Earth without a phone, you could always see someone's gestures and facial expressions during a conversation. But you don't see that on the phone. “Then you miss that interaction with the environment and you're just mentally busy.”
Interact with your environment
To compensate for this lack of input, your body begins to move. By walking, you will still be interacting with your environment. The researcher says that this is just speculation, because this behavior is difficult to investigate.
In addition to walking, people sometimes also scribble on paper as a form of additional interaction. But this is of course less obvious than a person traveling miles during a telephone conversation.
Thinking = walking
One call is not the same as the other. You probably won't complete entire marathons during a simple phone conversation about a shopping list. While on a business phone call, you may leave marks on the office floor with all your movements.
how is that possible? Perhaps because you have to think more during such a business conversation than during a superficial conversation, Fahrenfurt says. You need to make up for your thinking sooner. “Even when people want to consciously think about something, they sometimes go for a walk outside.” In addition, the duration of the conversation is important; With a half-hour phone consultation, you are likely to speed up the conversation compared to a thirty-second call.
There are no spooky rides
The next time one of your colleagues walks loudly across the office on the phone, you'll know that his back-and-forth marching probably isn't nervous. It is possible that he receives more stimuli from his environment through all of these steps, to compensate for not seeing his call mate. Although there is no scientific evidence for this.
Of course, one question remains now: Why is he (like the other callers) talking so loudly on the phone?
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