To blame social media for the decline of manners in society today?

[knossospalace]

I'm 32 so hardly looking back at the past with years sentimentality like an older person might. But...it does seem like people have far less manners/boundaries/morals today.

Examples include: the frequent use of expletives ('cunt' features on almost every thread I read on here) at the drop of hat online, bitchiness between adults on Facebook, forums, etc., the 'compensation culture' we have, blatant road rage...the list goes on!

I teach in secondary school and, ten years ago even, I could assure the pupils that the arguments and bullying they come across in school largely disappears in day to day life (I acknowledge DA and bullying in the workplace has always existed but I suppose I'm thinking more between peers). However, having witnessed seemingly commonplace examples online of arguments, 'oneupmanship', people being openly racist/xenophobic, I no longer feel that saying life gets easier when you get older is true. And I imagine young people see adults in their lives behaving in this way - surely this is damaging?

Although I love my job and actually think teenagers (I currently only teach teens) are great, I do worry about examples being set online. I also feel it's creeping into 'real life' where people are far more likely to argue in public/be heard swearing, etc.

Just three examples of pupils having few boundaries:

'Miss, do you know that some men pay fat women to sit in their face?'

'Can you wear a tighter top tomorrow so I can see your bump properly?'

'Yeah, but that was, like, last year.' (When I challenged a pupil who dropped into conversation that she was banned from a trip as she had called the teacher a 'slag' online!)

And I am a respected and liked teacher who has a good rapport with pupils. All of the above came from pupils in the highest set too.

What do you think?

[corythatwas]

I'm not on social media either. but I am well over 50 and have very clear recollections of how openly "impolite" people could be 40 years ago, because it simply did not occur to them that racism, homophobia, hate language against teachers, sneering language against women, jokes about paedophilia etc etc was "impolite" or something to be ashamed of or something you wouldn't want your boss or your aunt or your black neighbour to hear about.

Obviously you couldn't put it online, because the internet hadn't been invented. But then again, I am not convinced that putting it on the internet is that much worse than saying it to the face of the person affected- and there was certainly plenty of that 40 years ago.

For my disabled dd, the internet has been her lifeline: support and advice and information and the chance to communicate with people even at times when she has been unable to see anyone in the flesh.

[kaitlinktm]

I'm in my thirties too. Trust me kids today are generally much kinder to teachers than they were before social media, and there are far more consequences to bullying. For example a jewish teacher was effectively run out of the school by bullying kids who would nazi salute her and leave images of kids from gas chambers on her desk. Another teacher had her hair set on fire (thankfully another teacher was there and put it out). A diabetic teacher who kept his insulin on his desk had it stolen so he had no choice but to go home. The kids were horrors. I was horrifically bullied too

I am sorry for your terrible experiences. However I think to say that kids are kinder to teachers now than they were before social media is too generalised. Two of the three of the incidents you cite - hair (potentially) set on fire and teacher's medication being stolen, happened to me in the last 5 years. Someone took my inhaler from my drawer - I was told I shouldn't keep it there (where then, if I need it in my place of work which is my classroom?) and a pupil lit a lighter a couple of inches away from my hair (if I had used hairspray it definitely would have burned).

[TheCompanyOfCats]

I get what you mean OP but I don't know what the cause is.

My partner teaches and the stuff he tells me (that children have casually said to him) makes my jaw drop and I was a really, really naughty girl in school! I do think that there has been an enormous drop in boundaries and respect.

[Trills]

Do you have evidence that there has actually been a decline in manners?
How do you define manners?

Without that you don't even have a correlation, let alone a case for causation.

[Birdsgottafly]

I often wonder if people are noticing it more, or it seems more public, because of the "ism" laws/policies.

Growing up in the 70's, there was open racism, which was largely ignored, because it wasn't thought of as 'wrong'.

Likewise sexism, underage girls being targeted, sexual assaults, sexualised verbal abuse. Victim blaming.

We had football hooliganism, if you wanted to legitimately call someone, or smash their face in.

You could do a bit of 'Paki/Gay bashing and that was largely ignored. It took the Stephen Lawerence case to get rid of institutional racism.

Bullying was thought of as Character building and of course, Domestic Abuse was part of married life.

Previously to that you could murder etc Jews/blacks/Native Americans etc.

At 14, you'd leave school, if you went.

So I don't think things have got worse, we've just lost our easy targets.

[knossospalace]

User I have been on it and other social media in the past. I always got bored/couldn't be bothered with it and left.

[user1480946351]

I know my views on social media are in the minority as I'm one of few people I know who isn't on Facebook, etc

Ah, so your views are informed by the fact that they are uninformed? You don't use it, but think you can somehow judge it. How is that?
It's like reviewing books you haven't read. You are not in a position to judge.

[user1480946351]

You are wildly exaggerating. For example, you are quite imagining that cunt features on every thread, its actually rather rare.
As for the rest, its the same as people have been whining for ever....every new technology is going to take us to hell in a handcart. People said much the same thing about the telephone, and the wireless, all of it. The end of society as we know it. Bullshit, then as now.

[knossospalace]

Thanks all for the responses. I think I've been misunderstood (perhaps as I went off tack a bit in my post!) in that I don't think using bad language, being racist or whatever is caused by social media (nor is it a new phenomenon) - it's that it's somehow gradually evolved into a system where people think it's okay to be impolite openly, often with their full name and photo alongside it and in front of hundreds of colleagues, family members and friends. Seeing this routinely then normalises it and people replicate it and it creeps into everyday life was my line of thinking?

I know my views on social media are in the minority as I'm one of few people I know who isn't on Facebook, etc. I've only recently joined MN and prob won't last long on here either. Although I like that there seems to be an intelligent clientele with some interesting posts with anonymity generally not abused.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

IMO. part of the problem is that people are more likely to find excuses for the behaviour of the children.

[dollydaydream114]

By the way, I'm 40 and I remember the word 'cunt' being a fairly regularly insult at my school, which was a reasonably well-thought-of girls' comprehensive.

I also remember a conversation with one of our teachers about an (actually rather serious and po-faced) TV documentary about fetishes that had been on. Nobody was trying to make her feel uncomfortable; we genuinely wanted her view on the weirdness of it.

[PotatoVegetable]

I don't think it was a silly comment obviously. I wouldn't say having a good rapport is indicated by that kind of language. It's disrespectful. I'm in my late forties and went to a very leftie school but if someone had said that there would have been hell to pay, and rightly so. I work in the prison service and wouldn't tolerate it from prisoners and there is lively ' banter' as you might imagine.

[dollydaydream114]

I think boundaries are changing. I don't think social media is the cause.

There have been huge shifts in social boundaries and expectations of kids' language and behaviour towards adults before. My grandparents couldn't believe what my parents could get away with as teenagers in the late 1950s, in comparison to what was expected of them in the 1920s.

[LiviaDrusillaAugusta]

I think we have a more childcentric society now as a reaction to the 'seen and not heard' era. I think in some ways it has gone too far (with people expecting their child to be 'respected' whilst said child doesn't have to respect anyone else), but like many of these issues, it will probably settle in years to come.

Social media is also literally a life saver in some cases

[DailyFail1]

I'm in my thirties too. Trust me kids today are generally much kinder to teachers than they were before social media, and there are far more consequences to bullying. For example a jewish teacher was effectively run out of the school by bullying kids who would nazi salute her and leave images of kids from gas chambers on her desk. Another teacher had her hair set on fire (thankfully another teacher was there and put it out). A diabetic teacher who kept his insulin on his desk had it stolen so he had no choice but to go home. The kids were horrors. I was horrifically bullied too.

Nowadays schools have anti-bullying awareness and policies. Kids who bully via social media would bully anyway, but now the bullied kids can go to the police/apply to change schools. Back in my day the expulsion policies were the same as they are now, but bullying victims had no right to change school in my area.

[corythatwas]

My dad was a teacher in the corporal punishment era. He said, while pupils were outwardly very respectful of their teachers (calling them Sir), there was a constant underground war going on, where things like tin tacks on a teacher's chair, mean anonymous letters, or trying to get a teacher into serious trouble were seen as perfectly legitimate things to do, because teachers weren't seen as people.

And this is a quotation from Goodbye, Mr Chips, the sentimental novel about a teacher looking back on his happy life at the idyllic public school. The date is c 1917 and the headteacher is speaking:

""You see how it is. Ralston filled the place up with young menall very good, of coursebut now most of them have joined up and the substitutes are pretty dreadful, on the whole. They poured ink down a man's neck in prep one night last weeksilly foolgot hysterical. I have to take classes myself, take prep for fools like that, work till midnight every night, and get cold-shouldered as a slacker on top of everything. I can't
stand it much longer. If things don't improve next term I shall
have a breakdown."

"I do sympathize with you," Chips said."

You see the attitude? Chips sympathizes not because the breakdown in society makes the boys behave like animals, but because the war means the school has to put up with teachers who cannot control them. You can't stop the boys from pouring ink down your neck- silly fool! That was the attitude of the early 20th century. Yes, it's fiction, but it's based on what the author had experienced and the attitudes he expected his readers to understand.

I hardly think social media is to blame.

I was a supply teacher about the time when you would have been at school- and yes, I remember some pretty bad things said. But what I also remember- and would hope you remember- is the larger number of decent pupils who never called anyone a slag in their lives, who were always willing to lend a hand to support a struggling friend, who sometimes worked heroically to take care of struggling family members.
I hope you do see those pupils, too.

[PeachBellini123]

I'm the same age as you OP and remember some disgusting things said to teachers...maybe I just went to a rougher school.

Also I grew up in East London so hearing those swear words was pretty common place...

I don't get how social media causes road rage? I think that's more to do with more drivers/cars on the road and the lack of infrastructure leading to delays etc (not that that excuses road rage at all).

[GreatFuckability]

I don't think your basic premise that people have worse manners/thinks are worse is true. I think its just a very different world.

I remember lots of awful shitty bullying going on in my school, I knew far more openly racist, homophobic people when i was younger than I do now. I remember being really rude and inappropriate to teachers cos I thought I was hilarious (I was not. I was also top set in everything.).

[anotheronebitthedust]

think 'people being openly racist/xenophobic,' is a weird one to blame on social media - I think having 'No blacks' signs in hotels in the 1950s, being being socially ostracized for marrying outside of their ethnicity, tv shows like black and white minstrels, love they neighbour, etc, are about as openly racist as you can get. I think racism/sexism/etc today is by no means nonexistent but is far more insidious than overt.

Same with morals - if you had excellent 'morals' in 1950 you would have been judged for swearing in the street, but as a woman you would equally have been judged for: having sex before marriage, working post marriage, expecting your DH to do any housework, going to the pub alone, wearing anything shorter than knee length, not being white/Christian, etc.

In comparison, calling someone who's acting like a twat, a twat, is, to my mind, less damaging.

Agree social media/internet can have negative effects in some ways - young children's easy access to extreme porn, things like pro-anorexia website, and just the fact that there is no escape - at least if you were bullied in the 1980s you could go home and hide from it all, not be bombarded on facebook, instagram, twitter etc.

However there are also huge benefits - children teens today (whether they're gay, geeky, have aspergers, or whatever) who don't fit in in someway with the tiny minority of people their own age they are geographically closest to, can get to know people all over the world, with the same interests of them, can get support etc., and reassurance that they can have a better life. I can only imagine how valuable that could be.

I agree that it must be hard for younger people to grow up trying to work out what's 'appropriate' in 'real' life compared to 'online' though. It's hard enough for adults - I'm thinking of the man who got arrested for making a joke about blowing up that airport on twitter, for example.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

The words stuff, YABU, manners are not fixed, particularly with regards to the language bits (thankfully! it was perfectly good manners in the past to use racist or homophobic slurs)

You were probably simply wrong about the arguments and bullying disappearing in adult life. The difference is really that in adult life you can choose much more how and who you engage with so it's easier to insulate yourself through your choices.

Social media hasn't changed people, what it has done is made it easy to engage with more people. You can still escape into your house and books.

[ilovesooty]

Your generation were my pupils at the end of my teaching career. They said far worse routinely to a range of teaching staff than your pupils said.

[PuntasticUsername]

YABU to try and blame it on social media, or any other particular type of tech. People are people and, as PP have said, will always find ways to be vile to one another.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." - a quote often attributed to Socrates/Plato.

[LiviaDrusillaAugusta]

If you are telling students that life gets easier when you are older, then you shouldn't! That's totally unrealistic to let them think that once they have bills, bosses, families to look after etc, it's easier than going to school, having your food and home paid for and not even being responsible for yourself.

[daisychain01]

Let's face it, social media won't go away any time soon, so people of all ages just need to know how to use it positively rather than negatively.

If only they had a User Manual before issuing people with Social media.

[Magzmarsh]

Most of the awful behaviour I've seen on fb has been perpetrated by middle aged women. All the teens I have the pleasure of mixing with are pretty lovely and I work in a school environment so that's a lot so I'd have to disagree with you.