There are hardly any smartphones on show in public in London! Compared with SE Asia, that is.
Travel on any public transport in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok, and almost everyone will be on their phone, often with loud games or Malay/Hokkien/Thai dramas playing openly.
Not so in London. Ride the Tube here, and there will be a few people quietly on their phones, a lot reading the free newspapers (Evening Standard, Metro) given out at stations, or listening to music on headphones. Almost zero noise apart from talking, and the vehicle itself.
Some of this is because there is high crime in London. Waving an expensive device is not wise, and some friends using their phones in public have literally had the gadgets snatched by fast-running thieves! Having said this, places like Kuala Lumpur are hardly famous for their low-crime. And yet it's smartphones a-gogo over there!
Also, there is currently no signal on the London Underground (aka Tube) - you can register to access a poor one in stations only, but most people don't. A comprehensive 4G network is set to launch this year. But, apart from occasional teens, people here rarely make phone noise where there is a signal either.
It seems there are differences in culturally-acceptable sounds. In the UK, for example, loud - sometimes disturbing - racket around public drunkenness, sports events, or house-parties - is tolerated. Or at least people do it, and others are powerless to change it. These kinds of noise pollution simply don't occur in somewhere like Singapore. Anyone holding a loud house-party there would be very unpopular - the general sympathy lying with any neighbours having to endure it. And people would push to have it shut down.
But while this kind of racket happens a lot in London, talking in the cinema, for example, or a blaring device in a restaurant (both common in SE Asia!) are absolutely unacceptable. And people rarely do either.
Anyway, my stop comes up soon. I'm writing this on an old, undesirable device, while quietly listening to my iPod on the way across London :)
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