Dave Phelan commented on Tom Hume‘s excellent blog:

“Two different people displayed the same behaviour on the train yesterday: shaking their mobiles to get them to do something.”

“The first was mid call, then took her phone from her ear, looked at the screen, shook it vigourously, and then made a new call to the original conversationalist: She reported her phone had crashed – the screen had whited out.
The second was mid call, and clearly lost signal (hello? hello?). She gave her mobile a shake to see if she could regain signal (or maybe just in frustration – hard to tell.
It’s interesting, clearly shaking a hand-held device to make it work better is a well-ingrained activity. Shampoo bottles, ketchup, salt cellars, wind-up watches all spring to mind. Odd to see it with electroncs, but it feels quite natural. Try it…”