October 10, 2012 10:36 am
Elevator Awkwardness Explained
Image: K2
Aerosmith made elevators look way cooler than they actually are. Their version goes something like this:
Of course, you know what an elevator is like in reality. It’s super awkward. You stand there silently, reach awkwardly past people to push buttons and immediately end any conversation you were having as soon as a new person comes into the elevator.
But why are we so bad at riding in elevators without descending into pre-pubescent awkwardness? Well, there are a few reasons, and the BBC has some of them:
“You don’t have enough space,” says Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin.
“Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators, so it’s a very unusual setting. It’s unnatural.”
And not everyone really likes the idea of being trapped in a big metal box dangling by a few cables as you shoot up or down a building. The BBC again:
“In the back of our minds we are a little anxious,” says Nick White, an office worker in New York who was unfortunate enough to be trapped in a lift for 41 hours.
“We don’t like to be locked into a place. We want to get out of the elevator as soon as possible, because, you know, it’s a creepy place to be.”
Of course, elevators are exceptionally safe. In fact, they’re one of the safest forms of transportation available. The Huffington Post writes:
ConsumerWatch.com reported that elevator accidents that result in death are very rare — about 27 a year — though injuries from elevator accidents affect about 10,200 people a year.
However, the LA Times calculated that elevators make about 18 billion trips a year, so the fatality rate from elevator accidents works out to about 0.00000015 percent per trip.
So while they might be awkward, they’re certainly not all that dangerous.
More from Smithsonian.com:
Get a Lift From Folkway’s Songs About Elevators
What Is the Tallest Structure Humans Could Build?
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Do people react the same way in countries where the person-to-person distance is less than the arm’s length?
Comment by Marjory Munson — October 14, 2012 @ 8:08 am
Part of the problem is that no one teaches “Elevator 101″!! Which corner do you go to first. Should you face the front or the back? No one, even your mother shows how to enter and conduct yourself when you are a kid. Are there any printed pamphlets or instructions about Elevator Etiquette??
Comment by Bob Brown — October 14, 2012 @ 9:42 am
There’s a brilliant lobby feature at a hotel in Las Vegas featuring fictional elevator interiors with little play vignettes going on in each of them. Fabulous installation, and the best public art I’ve ever seen in Vegas.
Comment by max — October 14, 2012 @ 9:45 am
Since everyone seems to be looking up, why don’t they put a weigh scale showing the poundage of the occupants in a little window above the door? All elevators post the weigh not to exceed. I’m only guessing, but some people with a weight problem might use the stairs. Look honey, together we weigh 345 lbs.
Comment by Len Johnson — October 14, 2012 @ 10:50 am
I used to have great fun in our office elevator by turning to a colleague, who was in on the joke, and saying, “Well, how does he know it’s his baby?” Immediately, you could hear a pin drop. And then, laughter as the normal elevator tension lifted.
Comment by Barry Kramer — October 14, 2012 @ 7:23 pm
I still dislike them. And it’s entirely because I am claustrophobic.
Comment by Heather — November 5, 2012 @ 1:46 pm