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(via) Read in Wired, a sociologist, Esther Kim from Yale University was interested in the tactics employed by people to keep a free seat in the bus:
- Avoid eye contact
- Lean against the window and stretch out your legs.
- Sit on the aisle seat and listen to music to pretend not to hear people asking for the window seat.
- Place a large bag or multiple items in the empty seat to make it time-consuming to move.
- Look out the window with a blank stare to appear crazy.
- Pretend to be asleep.
- Put your coat on the seat to make it appear already taken.
- If all else fails, lie: Say the seat has been taken by someone else.
Why do I blog this? A fascinating example of how people adopt very simple behavior to avoid a proximate interaction with strangers. The underlying reasons for doing that is also relevant. Potentially intriguing for designers interested in playing with this situation.
It might not be so much a distaste for sitting next to a stranger as the fact that once someone is sitting next to you, you’re barely able to move for the next several hours (especially if that person falls asleep and keeps drooping over into your half of the seat). That’s why there won’t be a repeat performance of the nearly 16 full-to-capacity hours I spent on Megabus last Christmas. Then again, what do you expect for $5?
(via humanscalecities)
