You are walking in the woods.

A babbling brook, a breeze rustling the leaves, the sweet trill of a chickadee—Mother Nature can be really distracting when you’re on your phone. So a hike is the perfect time to put your conversation on speaker. Your friend is desperate to tell you about the wallpaper she’s putting up in her guest bathroom, which means it’s imperative that you hear her every word at full volume. No one, except maybe the animals and a few people taking restorative strolls, will notice.

You are having a heart-to-heart conversation.

Your daughter is in the middle of a bitter divorce, and she has no one to turn to but you and the strangers in your elevator. Sure, you could always call her right back, but you’re not tethered to the confines of your own home like some landline-owning Luddite. Besides, the FedEx guy is also on speaker, and, from what you can tell, his daughter’s divorce is bitter, too.

You are at Pret A Manger during an off-peak hour.

There are only a handful of people eating hard-boiled eggs and having hushed, intense conversations—ergo, very few people will be inconvenienced. Go ahead and pause your loud-ass YouTube video to take this call from Unknown Number.

You are in a “Castaway” situation.

You’re stranded on a desert island and your phone’s battery is at ten per cent. If there was ever a time to chat with your loved ones on speaker, this is it. You can finally talk about your massage therapist’s lack of emotional intelligence, to your heart’s content. So what if your volleyball “friend” is giving you the stink eye? He’s just jealous that you’re so good at spotting the telltale signs of a classic narcissist.

You are speaking to your adult son.

You have answered a call from your adult son while at a dinner party. Nancy’s roast will have to wait while you make introductions—at last, everyone can put a disembodied voice to a vaguely familiar name.

You are speaking to a customer-service representative.

It’s so hard to get ahold of a real human being, so, when you do have one on the line, keep them there. While a week-night screening of “Weapons” is not the ideal venue for this conversation, your phone has a flashlight for a reason. (That reason is not for finding your way to an exit, but rather for finding the little notebook of passwords you keep in your purse.) Plus, “Weapons” is pretty scary, so the other moviegoers will thank you for cutting the tension with your thundering voice.

You are having a national-security conversation.

When the security of the nation is at stake, it’s best to have a hands-free conversation so that you can use your hands to do important stuff, like sending top-secret text messages without checking to see who’s in the group chat. Go ahead, we’re all listening. ♦