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As more and more people use cell phones, traditional phone booths are disappearing. Or at least the public ones are. Now, some U.S. businesses are starting to install their own company phone booths.
Increasingly, people are complaining that others are disturbing them by talking loudly on their cells. “I really felt like I couldn’t do anything else when someone was on a cell phone,” says Lauren Emberson in Psychological Science. “I couldn’t read. I couldn’t even listen to my music.” Zenbooth of Berkeley, California, is trying to change that. Zenbooth makes phone booths ranging in price from $3,995 (€3,480) to $15,995. It has sold its products to companies including Volkswagen, Gizmodo Media Group and Capital One.
Zenbooth’s co-founder Sam Johnson says he doesn’t describe the company’s products as “phone booths.” Instead, “we’re manufacturing quiet spaces and privacy,” Johnson told The New York Times.