The rising influence of smartphones has negatively impacted the mobile phone behaviour of many Australians as a new online survey conducted by giant telco Telstra showed that 80 percent of the country's phone owners displayed rude attitude while engaged on their handsets.

Telstra said that the figures were gleaned from 1023 participants and some 50 percent of which declared indifference on the situation despite their pronouncements that the odd behaviour when using phones disturbed them.

With more smartphones flooding the market and luring consumer interests, the spikes in rude attitudes among Australians have become more prominent, according to Telstra consumer director Rebekah O'Flaherty.

O'Flaherty said that dominating the gripes were phone users behind the wheels or those talking too loud as she stressed that "modern technology has transformed the way Australians live, which is why we need a new set of etiquette rules to help turn around mobile misbehaviour."

As more and more Australians jumped into smartphone usages, the Telstra survey said that accessing social networking accounts such as Facebook and Twitter became a lot easier, with many users even compulsively checking their pages while doing something else such as having a dinner date.

The survey also listed irritating ringtones as one of the main complaints aired by the participants with 55 percent of them thumbing down such behaviour while loudly playing music and using the mobile phone in the middle of the came next, with 54 percent and 40 percent disapprovals respectively.

Also, the new Telstra study revealed that 50 percent of those queried had confirmed they were piqued by people conversing on the phone while using the public transport yet 57 percent of the same participants have conceded that they were guilty of the same offense and on a regular basis.

It also emerged that younger Australians, specifically from the age bracket of 18 to 24, are more accepting of some who cannot help but use their phones while behind the wheels while their older counterparts flatly labelled the behaviour as annoying.