Manners have left the chat: Have kids forgotten manners or are we all just out for ourselves?

Niamh O'Reilly

HOLLYWOOD STAR ZENDAYA came under fire recently after she failed to stand up to greet Brigitte Macron when the pair met at Paris Fashion Week. The footage showed The Odyssey actress remain seated, as she politely shook hands with the wife of the French President, who was standing in front of her.

The clip soon went viral, with the charge attached that it’s simply good manners to stand up to greet someone, regardless of who they are. By Zendaya not doing so, online critics concluded that, she and the whole of Gen Z are a bunch of selfish, rude ingrates who have no clue how to behave in public.

In fairness to poor Zendaya, I’m not sure why she’s been singled out as the poster girl for an entire generation. It also looked as if she hadn’t a bogs notion who Brigitte Macron was and while she didn’t stand up, she seemed perfectly polite otherwise.

But it begs the question are young people lacking in manners these days? Or is it that manners, basic social etiquette and being considerate is less important to them in an ever-increasing online world?

I’m not sure if it’s fair to level this charge singularly at younger people, but then again if you’ve managed to sit on any form of public transport in the last while, be it bus, train or tram, without being subjected to the loud sounds of TikTok videos, or Instagram reels or voice notes from your younger fellow travellers, then congratulations, your experience is about as rare as hens’ teeth.

Cinemas are another hotbed of mannerless behaviour. If you’ve not had someone, most likely from the under 30 camp put their feet on your seat, scroll on their phone midway through the movie, or bring in some absolutely stinking foodstuff with them to gobble at will, then once again, you’re in the minority.

The strange part is that they don’t see anything wrong with what they are doing and will tell you so if you politely ask them to put in headphones or stop looking at their phone in a dark cinema. It’s as if something has shifted in what’s deemed to be acceptable behaviour in public with the dial shifting away from considering others, to being solely about the individual. It’s a once I’m happy playing a really loud voicenote or TikTok I want to watch then that’s all that matters, sort of vibe.

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No excuses

As a mum, I’m a stickler for manners. In my book, please and thank you are absolute basics which cost nothing, but make a huge difference to how we all move through the world and interact with each other daily.

Sometimes I think that maybe I’ve gone overboard on that front with my two children. But then other times people will compliment me on their good manners, and I know that if nothing else, then at least I’ve got that right. The other week a fellow mum said “hello” to my nine-year-old as he ran past her, and instead of the usual intelligible grumble or “bruh” we often hear from this age group, he replied, “I’m good thanks, how are you?” She nearly fell off her feet with shock.

Little moments like that make me smile, but I’m under no illusions that this level of considerate behaviour will last forever, especially when the teenage years hit. While young people have always tended to put themselves first at that age, this feels like a much bigger societal shift.

So what’s driving it?

People will tell you it was Covid. Granted, successive over the top lockdowns which cut us off from family and friends for extended periods, coupled with social distancing, did huge damage to all our social skills; not just the young. You could even say that we all became a bunch of epic ‘Me Feiners’, who got so accustomed to putting ourselves first, we forgot that people’s feelings mattered and that communal settings aren’t your sitting room.

But the hill I will die on is that the biggest reason for the decline in the social etiquette of younger people is due to the insidious nature of smartphones and devices. They have become so embedded in our daily lives that they are literally sucking the humanity out of us, one, often very loud, shortform video at a time.

Not every young person is rude or lacks basic manners, but all of them are living an online existence. While Gen Z is often called the first proper digital native generation, Gen Alpha is has had devices thrust into their tiny hands from toddlerhood. And that has had a huge impact on how they are growing up, their view of social etiquette and public behaviour.

The tech factor

Essentially when you’re living online and brought up more or less plugged into a device all the time, you become the main character in your own online content. Talking to your own face on a screen, recording monologues in a vacuum.

Watching toxic content from whoever the algorithm sends your way. Making instant purchases, getting information on tap and the associated dopamine hits from social media and apps without delay.

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We’re bringing up our children and young people with modern communication habits that make it easier to focus on the individual and harder to practise the small courtesies that previous generations took for granted. Eye contact. Please and thank you. Basic greetings. Considering others in public spaces.

How can we expect our kids to be considerate of other people’s feelings when most of us, and I include the adults in the room here, don’t even look up from our phones for more than a few seconds during our day?

When most peoples preferred method of communication is to send voice notes the length of the War and Peace audiobook, where they talk to themselves, unchecked and interrupted by another human and often at top volume in public, are we really surprised that social etiquette and manners in real life has taken a nosedive?

The result is that we live in a world where many of us wouldn’t think twice about leaving a questionable or nasty comment on someone’s social media or adding to a virtual pile-on over something we don’t agree with, but find it hard to pass the time of day with a real person standing in front of us.

I was in a sauna the other day and a person decided to heap in a load of hot water and peppermint oil into the coals without asking a single other person present if they minded. It was so hot and minty that it cleared the place in about 30 seconds, but as long as he was happy that was all that seemed to matter, right? A simple ‘excuse me’ or ‘do you mind’ goes a hell of a long way in a lot of cases. It shows you’re considering another person’s feelings in communal social settings.

Young people are not necessarily ruder than previous generations, but sometimes it can feel that way. Growing up in a digital world may be making it harder for them to develop and practise the interpersonal skills that help us live together. What was once an accepted norm for public behaviour is now often the exception and while every generation evolves, I have to wonder if we’re all becoming a bunch of out for ourselves ‘Me Feiners,’ now?

Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and journalist.