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Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Are we in a crisis of rudeness?
It's a question, a lingering suspicion that has bedeviled nearly every generation: Are the kids these days getting more rude, more brash, more grossly unapologetic? 'We have stories of Emily dealing with this question, we have stories of our grandmother dealing with this question,' says Lizzie Post, the great-great-granddaughter of etiquette maven Emily Post and co-president of the Emily Post Institute. 'Five generations gives us the length of time to prove this one out that we really do constantly look back at times nostalgically and say that they were more polite.' Society certainly seems to think we've collectively gotten more rude. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, nearly half of the country believes people's behavior is more impolite than before the pandemic. Enter any public space and you're bound to encounter someone having a phone call on speaker, fellow passengers mixing up egg salad on a plane, or students leaving class unannounced. These incidents inevitably become flashpoints of heated debate online. Unchecked incivility has wide-reaching consequences. Bearing witness to behavior that you find rude, whether face-to-face or electronically, leads to worse mood and decreased cognitive performance. When someone is rude to you, you may become defensive and less likely to cooperate — no one wants to spend time and energy interacting with a jerk. Impoliteness is actually contagious, spreading from one person to another: When you experience something impolite, you're more likely to spot other supposedly rude behavior and act impolitely yourself. 'Are we ruder? I don't know, but I know we're less aware of each other, we do not pay as much attention to our impact on one another.' Lizzie Post Post can't say for sure whether our current culture is more impolite than generations' past, but she does believe we're living through a crisis of attention that can lead to disrespectful behaviors. Perpetually distracted and always looking at screens, we've become accustomed to switching topics mid-conversation or checking email over dinner. And that's just how we treat the people we know. We hardly consider the comfort of strangers when playing a YouTube video sans headphones on a crowded bus. 'Are we ruder?' Post says. 'I don't know, but I know we're less aware of each other, we do not pay as much attention to our impact on one another, and we have more ways to be annoying to each other or rude or dismissive than we've ever had before.' There may also be bigger factors underlying our supposed epidemic of rudeness. Christine Porath, a professor at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and the author of Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace, conducted a global survey in 2022 of 2,000 people who either had customer-facing jobs or observed those who did. Porath found that 73 percent of respondents said it wasn't unusual for customers to behave badly, compared to 61 percent who said the same in her 2012 survey. 'The number one reason that I found for people being rude is feeling stressed or overwhelmed,' Porath says. 'If you think about the last few years, Covid in particular, contributed to this, but plenty of other stressors, the uncertainty…a lot of negativity that we're taking in in society, a lot of people angrier or on edge or frustrated.' What is rude? 'Rude,' of course, can mean many things to as many people. Some may not bat an eye when students leave class unannounced, others see it as a breach of the social code. But, as Post notes, your definition of what's 'rude' is shaped by personal experience and preference. According to Post, you might label an action as rude if it has offended, disrespected, or made you uncomfortable. Jennifer Loh, a management and human resources professor at the University of Canberra in Australia, classifies 'rude' as an action, behavior, or comment meant to convey disrespect that also violates a social norm. When you expect to be treated one way and others fail to meet that standard, you might consider it impolite. These breaches can be direct or indirect, says Amy Irwin, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen. Overly critiquing a friend's performance at an open mic may be construed as directly rude. Staring at your phone while someone attempts to converse with you is a passive form of incivility. There's also an element of ambiguity at play, Irwin says, since you never really know if a colleague purposely ignored you when you greeted them (rude) or if they simply didn't see you (can be forgiven). But is it rude? Lizzie Post, the co-president of the Emily Post Institute, offers some clarity on oft-devisive behaviors. Is it rude to talk on the phone in public? 'On a speaker phone? Yes. If you have a captive audience, in a space someone can't get away from, elevators, small rooms, a waiting room, these are spaces where you really shouldn't be on the phone at all.' Is it rude to text someone late at night? 'No. We have control over our devices to decide when we're going to allow notifications to bother us or not, that means it's on us to put those in place. Given time zones, I wouldn't begrudge someone. But think about your audience.' Is it rude to email a professor on the weekend? 'No, but you shouldn't expect a response.' Is it rude to smack while eating? 'Yes.' Is it rude to ask for a plus one to a wedding? 'Yes.' Is it rude to recline on a plane? 'It's rude to recline for the entire flight.' But everyone's idea of what is normal, acceptable behavior differs. People learn what is kosher from those around them: parents, extended family, friends, culture writ large, Post says. You may have grown up in a family where eating in front of the TV was customary, but your romantic partner might find the idea horrifying. While age often gets blamed for rudeness — the classic 'kids these days' knock — generational differences in incivility can be attributed to the culture in which you grew up. Younger people who grew up alongside technology may find it appropriate to scroll TikTok in social settings. Those who were exposed to tech later in life could be offended by even the presence of a phone in a one-on-one hangout. In a study of Australian millennials, Gen Xers and boomers, Loh found younger participants consider it good manners to respond to a text immediately. 'Whereas for the older generation,' she says, 'not responding straight away doesn't seem to worry them too much because they don't think it's actually rude.' Your present social context also plays a role in whether you consider an act rude, Irwin notes. Burping loudly in a bar is more widely accepted than burping in the middle of a meeting. 'You can take exactly the same behavior,' she says, 'put it in a different context, and it's viewed completely differently by the same person.' And the closer you are to the offender, the more likely you are to excuse their behavior, anyway. More broadly, each culture has its own social niceties, so while it might be acceptable for you to scarf down a snack while walking on the street in the US, you might get a few confused glances in Japan. Breaking the cycle of rudeness When instances of impropriety abound, Post says it's crucial to be aware of the behavior you're modeling, both to peers and the kids in your life, and explain why courtesy is so important — that it isn't just to police others' behavior, but to provide a framework of respect. 'Taking the time when you're at the dinner table to talk about why we don't chew with our mouth wide open,' she says. Leaders at work, coaches, and teachers can set expectations for what behavior is appropriate for the office, the field, the classroom, and hold people accountable, Porath says. Reflect on how you interact with others: Are you constantly on your phone at the dinner table? Do you cut off colleagues in meetings? Do you leave your shopping cart in the middle of the grocery store parking lot? How do you speak to waiters and other service workers? If there were recent moments where you fell short — maybe you were a little terse with a barista — consider where you went wrong, Post says. Moving forward, try to be more mindful of the impact you have on others. It can help to start noticing polite behaviors all around you: The guy at the doctor's office who held the door open for another patient; someone appropriately covering their mouth when they sneeze in public. They're not as few and far between as you might think. 'It's important to recognize that the positive can have such a big impact,' Post says. 'Looking for the good moments of behavior that you see out in the world, starts to remind you that they're there, that you can participate in too.' Solve the daily Crossword
Vox
3 days ago
- General
- Vox
Are we in a crisis of rudeness?
It's a question, a lingering suspicion that has bedeviled nearly every generation: Are the kids these days getting more rude, more brash, more grossly unapologetic? 'We have stories of Emily dealing with this question, we have stories of our grandmother dealing with this question,' says Lizzie Post, the great-great-granddaughter of etiquette maven Emily Post and co-president of the Emily Post Institute. 'Five generations gives us the length of time to prove this one out that we really do constantly look back at times nostalgically and say that they were more polite.' Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Unchecked incivility has wide-reaching consequences. Bearing witness to behavior that you find rude, whether face-to-face or electronically, leads to worse mood and decreased cognitive performance. When someone is rude to you, you may become defensive and less likely to cooperate — no one wants to spend time and energy interacting with a jerk. Impoliteness is actually contagious, spreading from one person to another: When you experience something impolite, you're more likely to spot other supposedly rude behavior and act impolitely yourself. 'Are we ruder? I don't know, but I know we're less aware of each other, we do not pay as much attention to our impact on one another.' — Lizzie Post Post can't say for sure whether our current culture is more impolite than generations' past, but she does believe we're living through a crisis of attention that can lead to disrespectful behaviors. Perpetually distracted and always looking at screens, we've become accustomed to switching topics mid-conversation or checking email over dinner. And that's just how we treat the people we know. We hardly consider the comfort of strangers when playing a YouTube video sans headphones on a crowded bus. 'Are we ruder?' Post says. 'I don't know, but I know we're less aware of each other, we do not pay as much attention to our impact on one another, and we have more ways to be annoying to each other or rude or dismissive than we've ever had before.' There may also be bigger factors underlying our supposed epidemic of rudeness. Christine Porath, a professor at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and the author of Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace, conducted a global survey in 2022 of 2,000 people who either had customer-facing jobs or observed those who did. Porath found that 73 percent of respondents said it wasn't unusual for customers to behave badly, compared to 61 percent who said the same in her 2012 survey. 'The number one reason that I found for people being rude is feeling stressed or overwhelmed,' Porath says. 'If you think about the last few years, Covid in particular, contributed to this, but plenty of other stressors, the uncertainty…a lot of negativity that we're taking in in society, a lot of people angrier or on edge or frustrated.' What is rude? 'Rude,' of course, can mean many things to as many people. Some may not bat an eye when students leave class unannounced, others see it as a breach of the social code. But, as Post notes, your definition of what's 'rude' is shaped by personal experience and preference. According to Post, you might label an action as rude if it has offended, disrespected, or made you uncomfortable. Jennifer Loh, a management and human resources professor at the University of Canberra in Australia, classifies 'rude' as an action, behavior, or comment meant to convey disrespect that also violates a social norm. When you expect to be treated one way and others fail to meet that standard, you might consider it impolite. These breaches can be direct or indirect, says Amy Irwin, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen. Overly critiquing a friend's performance at an open mic may be construed as directly rude. Staring at your phone while someone attempts to converse with you is a passive form of incivility. There's also an element of ambiguity at play, Irwin says, since you never really know if a colleague purposely ignored you when you greeted them (rude) or if they simply didn't see you (can be forgiven). But is it rude? Lizzie Post, the co-president of the Emily Post Institute, offers some clarity on oft-devisive behaviors. Is it rude to talk on the phone in public? 'On a speaker phone? Yes. If you have a captive audience, in a space someone can't get away from, elevators, small rooms, a waiting room, these are spaces where you really shouldn't be on the phone at all.' Is it rude to text someone late at night? 'No. We have control over our devices to decide when we're going to allow notifications to bother us or not, that means it's on us to put those in place. Given time zones, I wouldn't begrudge someone. But think about your audience.' Is it rude to email a professor on the weekend? 'No, but you shouldn't expect a response.' Is it rude to smack while eating? 'Yes.' Is it rude to ask for a plus one to a wedding? 'Yes.' Is it rude to recline on a plane? 'It's rude to recline for the entire flight.' But everyone's idea of what is normal, acceptable behavior differs. People learn what is kosher from those around them: parents, extended family, friends, culture writ large, Post says. You may have grown up in a family where eating in front of the TV was customary, but your romantic partner might find the idea horrifying. While age often gets blamed for rudeness — the classic 'kids these days' knock — generational differences in incivility can be attributed to the culture in which you grew up. Younger people who grew up alongside technology may find it appropriate to scroll TikTok in social settings. Those who were exposed to tech later in life could be offended by even the presence of a phone in a one-on-one hangout. In a study of Australian millennials, Gen Xers and boomers, Loh found younger participants consider it good manners to respond to a text immediately. 'Whereas for the older generation,' she says, 'not responding straight away doesn't seem to worry them too much because they don't think it's actually rude.' Your present social context also plays a role in whether you consider an act rude, Irwin notes. Burping loudly in a bar is more widely accepted than burping in the middle of a meeting. 'You can take exactly the same behavior,' she says, 'put it in a different context, and it's viewed completely differently by the same person.' And the closer you are to the offender, the more likely you are to excuse their behavior, anyway. More broadly, each culture has its own social niceties, so while it might be acceptable for you to scarf down a snack while walking on the street in the US, you might get a few confused glances in Japan. Breaking the cycle of rudeness When instances of impropriety abound, Post says it's crucial to be aware of the behavior you're modeling, both to peers and the kids in your life, and explain why courtesy is so important — that it isn't just to police others' behavior, but to provide a framework of respect. 'Taking the time when you're at the dinner table to talk about why we don't chew with our mouth wide open,' she says. Leaders at work, coaches, and teachers can set expectations for what behavior is appropriate for the office, the field, the classroom, and hold people accountable, Porath says. Reflect on how you interact with others: Are you constantly on your phone at the dinner table? Do you cut off colleagues in meetings? Do you leave your shopping cart in the middle of the grocery store parking lot? How do you speak to waiters and other service workers? If there were recent moments where you fell short — maybe you were a little terse with a barista — consider where you went wrong, Post says. Moving forward, try to be more mindful of the impact you have on others.
Business Insider
17-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
AI assistants are popping up in meetings. Etiquette experts say be ready to ditch them if a coworker isn't comfortable.
More and more business meetings have a nonhuman participant: AI. People are increasingly enlisting AI assistants to sit in on their calls and meetings at work, relying on the technology to record, take notes, and generate summaries or transcripts after the fact. And while many of the etiquette rules around work are well-established, the best practices around AI in a meeting setting represent a new and evolving Wild West. Do you tell your coworkers you're using AI? Do you boot your tech assistant from the meeting if an attendee is uncomfortable with it? We asked Daniel Post Senning and Lizzie Post, etiquette experts with the Emily Post Institute, to weigh in on the topic. Their book, "Emily Post's Business Etiquette," which touches on AI in the workplace, goes on sale May 20. "Any time you record, you want to let someone know," Daniel Post Senning told BI. "It's just nice to give people a heads-up when something different, unexpected, or that's going to record them is going to be a part of the equation," said Lizzie Post. "Just to give them a heads-up about what they're going to see, what they're going to interact with." You can also ask if anyone would like a copy of the AI-generated transcript or summary after the call. "It makes perfect sense that you might say to somebody why that recording is in place and what benefit they might get from it," Post Senning added. "I've learned that if I describe the benefits, all of a sudden they're excited about it and they get the same benefit out of it." But you should be prepared to stop the recording or other usage of an AI assistant if greeted with pushback from hesitant coworkers. "If someone says no, they're not comfortable with it, they don't like it, they don't like the whole idea of it, or they just don't like being recorded, be willing to shut it off," he added. If you're not, be prepared for them not to participate in the meeting. As more people experiment with ChatGPT and other AI tools in their personal lives and at work, the etiquette surrounding their use at work is still developing. "AI made it into the book, but it's one where the leaps in it and the ways that people are using it are more ubiquitous and different than they were even six months ago," said Post Senning. "That's an area that's moving very fast right now, and the core advice wouldn't be any different, but I think the space that it would take up in the book and the ways we would talk about it — that would be a likely difference in another edition that came out even six months later or a year later."
Vox
05-02-2025
- General
- Vox
What if you threw a party tonight?
The US, apparently, is becoming increasingly averse to parties. As The Atlantic noted last month, only an average of 4.1 percent of Americans attended or hosted social events on an average weekend or holiday in 2023. The problem isn't due to a lack of desire: Most people are happy with the number of friends they have, per a 2024 study, but less than half of respondents were satisfied with the amount of time they spent with these friends. Parties are, of course, a simple-in-theory way to bring a bunch of people together, but preconceived notions about what these gatherings should be can hamstring us from setting a date in the first place. What if no one shows up? Is my house clean enough? I'm a terrible cook with crappy dinnerware. Is this the most boring party ever? 'There's traditionally been a lot of pressure, especially on women, to be an accomplished host right out the gate,' says Lizzie Post, etiquette expert and co-president at the Emily Post Institute. 'It's a skill that we develop over time.' Rather than work yourself into a ball of nerves, I propose a humble gathering solution: the come-as-you-are party. Growing up, I heard tales of these impromptu, deliciously fun get-togethers my grandparents pulled together within a few hours in the '70s and '80s. Every so often, the story goes, my grandfather would wake up on a Saturday morning and casually suggest having a party that evening. All day long, my grandparents would call their friends to invite them over later. The only catch: Don't change your clothes, don't shower, and simply show up in whatever you're wearing. Oh, you're painting your kid's bedroom? Well, looks like you're attending a party in paint-splattered coveralls. The only catch: Don't change your clothes, don't shower, and simply show up in whatever you're wearing. Perhaps the key to a successful party — and in fact, making sure you throw one at all — is to minimize the amount of time spent agonizing over it. Despite the fact that my grandmother managed to clean the house and prepare enough food for over two dozen guests in a matter of hours, she says the event never caused her anxiety. She loves to cook and if people couldn't come, well, no sweat. 'It was on a Saturday, and there was no stress,' my grandmother told me recently. 'They didn't have to get dressed up. They didn't have to go get their hair done.' According to Priya Parker, the author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters , my grandparents may have hit on something important long before the party recession and decades before the loneliness crisis: Your house will never be clean enough, the decor never perfect enough, the menu never tasty enough, and the timing never ideal enough for a party, so you should just throw one anyway. 'People prefer connection over perfection,' Parker says. Hanging out with your friends ideally shouldn't feel like drudgery or an obligation. Lower the stakes, and the standards, by hosting a gathering you'd want to attend yourself, Parker says. For my grandparents, that was a low-effort evening where attendees brought their booze of choice and played drinking games all night. Maybe yours is having people over for a Fast & Furious marathon or a brunch party because you're neither a morning person nor a night owl. Even in an age of overscheduling and burnout, guests are less likely to turn down a low-lift, delightful invitation, Parker says. People can more easily find time to squeeze in an impromptu pasta night when a friend texts 'I have too much basil, come over and eat some pesto!' when all that's required of them is to show up with an appetite. All that's needed is a reason to hang out: According to a 2022 study, the most socially fulfilling parties are ones where there's food and drink as well as a reason for celebrating. 'A huge part of thinking about how [to] gather and not worry about all of these other things,' Parker says, is 'one simple conceit that helps wake up the group, connect the group.' Try not to let any declines bruise your ego, Post says. It's not about you. No reason for gathering is too small, says Kelley Gullo Wight, an assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University and the co-author of the 2022 study on celebrations and social support. 'Maybe someone just submitted a big project at work,' she says. 'Maybe someone just did their first yoga class, and that was a hard thing to go do.' Amassing even a small group to revel in the good moments helps to build a social network that will reliably show up when things get rough, too. Instead of overthinking every possible detail, from aesthetics to entertainment, Post suggests a short checklist of essentials: basic refreshments, a clean-enough space, and a welcoming attitude. Still, the most hospitable mindset doesn't ensure that people actually show up. With impromptu parties especially, some would-be guests may have other plans. Try not to let any declines bruise your ego, Post says. It's not about you. Sometimes, the invitation alone may be enough to show your friends how much you appreciate them. And if you desire to live in a social environment where your friends prioritize reciprocity, gathering, and inclusion, you might need to make the first move. Soon enough, others may follow your lead. If you're consistently throwing little shindigs — my grandparents hosted several parties throughout the year — chances are greater that more people can attend. What matters is giving yourself space to spend time with the people you love in whatever way possible. Even if your guests do show up in sweatpants. See More: Advice Even Better Friendship Life Relationships
