By Cameron Quinby
Editorial Editor
In case you weren’t aware, September is National Courtesy Month. This is just one of countless seemingly random and insignificant holidays that infest the calendar these days, but it does bring up an interesting question: are people less courteous now?
To be courteous means to be considerate and respectful. Tipping the delivery driver, saying ‘hello’ to your neighbor, or asking someone how their day went are all common courtesies. These types of small actions aren’t extinct, but I think they’ve definitely become less prevalent in modern times. Technology and social media have a lot to do with the decline of social civility, in my opinion.
Now, I don’t want to go out and say that technology is the devil and all the world’s problems would be solved if only children would put away their tablets and pick up a book. There were unpleasant people long before Facebook and Twitter. The role that social media has played in the decline of courteous behavior is that of isolation. I order a pizza online, I pay for it online, and
I’m face to face with another person for maybe a minute before I go back home and look at my phone or laptop some more.
People don’t interact with strangers as much anymore, as they no longer need to.
Media also instigates fear and distrust. There are new stories of the most unbelievable, heinous acts sprawled across front pages of newspapers or online articles every day. And it makes people nervous. You don’t know your neighbor, but you’re not going to go introduce yourself because he might kill you. This might not be such a big deal in small rural areas, but it really isn’t a joke anymore either. People don’t want to go out of their way to be kind to strangers because there’s no telling how he or she will respond.
So courteous behavior has declined with the times, but it’s not altogether gone. There are still a number of people who do go out of their way to say hello to passersby or compliment a cute shirt or bag.
In some ways, whether or not people are more or less courteous is a matter of perspective. Some people take other’s interest in their lives as nosiness and prefer to avoid niceties with strangers.