To think that people in general are becoming more selfish?

[jennymanara]

I just see this every day in lots of little interactions.

@jennymanara oh my bad. It came in while I was typing my essay & I got carried away.

I may still be seething about his rudeness

There are some lovely stories about kindness online though. People rescuing abandoned animals & people helping others with small & big gestures.

I think you just have to help where you can & try to remember the adage about always being kind as you don’t know what battles people are fighting. Some people do test that one though.

It's the little things.

People drop doors in your face or go through without saying thank you for holding them open. They'll queue jump, push you out the way, use their phone in the cinema, take every last one of something on a tray meant for sharing, make loads of noise on a hospital ward, wont give up their seat for anyone infirm, let their child hog a piece of equipment, cross the road rather than check someone is ok, ect ect ect. It's depressing just thinking about it all. It boils down to bad manners and self interest.

Yes and no.

I don't think people deliberately set out to be selfish.

I think a lot of people have been raised to believe that life should now be easy and fun for them, practically all of the time. Previous generations expected very little respite from grinding poverty, illness and death, and thank goodness we don't live like that anymore, but I do think amongst some people, it has been replaced by the idea that life should inherently be about enjoyment, thrills, finding your self, you only live once. While having high expectations is a good thing to a point, I think people have lost sight of the fact that for long stretches of their existence, they'll be working in fairly mundane jobs in order to afford their fun comfort and entertainment, as even in the best societies, these things don't fall out of trees.

People then feel hard done by and entitled, and because society is increasingly becoming all about the individual, they forget that, if they don't work for their fun, someone else has to.

So I don't think people are naturally any more deliberately mean/selfish, it's more that selfishness is the inevitable filler to the vaccum which is left by a sense of responsibility.

I do think basic manners have really gone downhill though. I work in and out of various schools. Ten years ago, about 80% of pupils would hold the door open for me, and if they didn't they'd be swiftly pulled up on it. Now I'd say 80% let the doors slam behind them and nobody says a thing. The difference is extremely noticeable.

Ah. Children MuffinMachine.

It will be a very unpopular thing to say but the behavior of kids has gone right down hill over the last 10 yeas. I was a TA for 8 years and the quantity of children thinking they could basically do as they liked and the staff 'cant do nothing about it' went up every single year. I'm talking about primary age here. Village school. Not SN, just not used to doing as they're told and no respect for anyone.

jennymanara - yes, I have ended up in a heap and hurt - my hip will never be the same again - for life - from age 42 (now 54).

I see the opposite standpoint as being selfish - people wanting me to hurry everywhere so they can get on with their own lives at the speed that they want to.

I will take my time. It is selfish I guess in the true meaning of the word. It is my turn to get off the bus, I press the button, wait until it is safe to get up, then do so (as the signs say at the front of the bus). Others around me may also be selfish - tutting, wanting me to hurry up so they can get on. Hey ho.

Each side finds fault with the other. Both are right, both are wrong.

I don't think the bus thing is about being selfish, I don't want to get catapulted down a bus, thanks.

In general, I do think a lot of people are self-absorbed these days. I find it hard to meet up with friends as so many of them spend half the time on their phones and it's just boring. But look on their insta after the fact and it's all 'had so much fun hun' bs. For a lot of people, image is the most important thing these days.

I wonder if social media will vanish with the next generation because it will be an old person's thing. I kind of hope so.

• flying down the bus ending in a heap in agony Has this actually happened to you where you have ended up on the floor of the bus and been injured?*

Not injured but I have fallen over flat out onto the floor when a driver stopped too quickly and I broke things in my shopping bag. So it does happen.

I agree re France. So much more respect and courtesy in everyday interactions.

I'm glad that social media wasn't about when I was young. I wasn't that pretty and had terrible dress sense. I would have looked awful on Facebook or insta.
I see my friends children on there looking so glamorous ; I couldn't have competed with that.
Tech is so good in some ways but so bad in others and fuelled the whole fake/ look at me thing.

Yes, people walking along the street or sat on the bus with their phones playing music or watching something!
Dont headphones still exist?
If I wanted to listen to music I'd put my own on thanks

I was talking about this with my MIL and I think part of the selfishness comes from people not having enough time.

I wouldn’t want to go back to the days where a woman’s career was over as soon as she married, but in those days people (who could afford it) had time. Shopping could be done while the children were at school so you could chat to people in the shop and on the bus. Teachers lived in the local area so parents knew Mrs X wasn’t an awful bully ogre because they knew her. Plus everyone knew everyone else so you had that element of not wanting to be shamed in your own community for being anti social.

Whereas now people are juggling two jobs, plus the kids, plus having to work out what shopping you can afford this week so your head is so full of busy you don’t notice anyone else around you.

Plus it comes on the back of being told through school that you can do anything and go anywhere and achieve everything, but actually if you can’t draw a straight line you won’t be an architect and if you can’t stand the sight of blood then, no, you can’t be a nurse. You can’t do anything and everything and that’s a crushing blow to people.

Plus everyone knew everyone else so you had that element of not wanting to be shamed in your own community for being anti social.

I think this was a factor. I worked with kids when I first left school at 16. I can remember at times wanting to behave selfishly when out in public, but I was always worried that a parent of a kid I looked after would see me and judge me.

I also think things got worse when a lot of adults became afraid to challenge bad behaviour in public. When I was a kid and young adult you got challenged all the time if you behaved badly in public, and this is still the case in some countries abroad.

I agree that people are busier, but some of that is self inflicted. But yes it probably does explain why some drivers are so much ruder.

Well as people have more 'rights' these days so does the sense of entitlement grows.

The community factor is a big one. I mean now if you push past someone to get the last seat on the bus chances are they aren't someone you are on speaking terms with

I grew up as a kid in public with a sense of being watched by other adults. I can remember going home and being told Mrs so and so said you were x, y and z, and I would get a row.

You have a point there - I work on the front counter in a community pharmacy - I myself am part of that community - my colleagues have said that people have become much less rude and abrasive since I started working there. I guess because they will and do encounter me out and about shopping and in the pub - so feel "the shame" if perceived as rude.

I agree and I have no hesitation in saying that times have changed. I was watching something the other day about the community spirit in Britain during the war - everyone had this sense that they were in the fight together, that their contribution was vital and important, and that the country pulling together was essential to victory. Now it's everyone for themselves. You see it in the selfish and pushy way people drive, walk down the street and behave in the supermarket. The sharp-elbowed tactics of people moving into catchment areas just to get a good school, ditto going to church for the same reason, the vacuous, self-obsessed, boastful crap that people post on social media. It's all me, me, me LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!

*I think people have always been selfish but, you see it a lot more on social media.

Yet, when people are kind they get accused of doing for the likes. So can't win.*

But, if they are being accused of doing things for likes, does that mean that they are posting on social media about something kind they have done? Is that necessary?

I hate sounding like a grumpy old fart, but I have worked in an academic library for almost thirty years, so I have seen a generation of change among students. The student workers have, in many, if not all cases, an enormous sense of entitlement.

A huge chunk of their time at work will require them to sit at a desk, behind a pc, and help patrons. When it is not busy, they are allowed or do homework, (or surf the net). This is an unofficial fringe benefit. One guy asked, while he was being trained, when he would have the chance to do homework. My friend was the trainer, though not his supervisor. I think she should have shut him down more strongly.

I occasionally give tasks for them to do while on the desk. There are certain ones I have to practically stand over. I used to only give work to the ones I knew would finish things quickly and accurately, but then I thought, screw it. It's not fair to make the hard workers work while the dickheads play solitaire. Twenty years ago, this wasn't an issue. Even the crappy workers worked harder than some of these guys.

However, I also, obviously, deal with students as patrons. Most of them are very friendly and appreciative. Some will take a call on their cell phone in the middle of me answering their question. mind you, there are some adults who do this, too.

The incident I was referring to on the bus recently was I rung the bell, bus stopped, I walked to front of the bus to get off probably four paces, by the time I got there someone was already on the bus on the platform and just stood looking at me expecting me to move.
Just rudeness the driver told them to step back in the end. Cue tutting and eye rolling.
Didn’t get on the bus any quicker just rude.

For the second day running, I have had to time putting my washing out to avoid next door's barbecues. I've had to wash one load twice because it absolutely reeked of smoke.

That's selfish - too difficult to knock and say they're going to have a barbecue in half an hour, so bring in your washing. People used to do that. Definitely becoming more selfish. I'm alright Jack has taken over.

I don’t agree at all.

I think it has become easier for selfish people to be more obvious.
Go back a few years and blasting music from your car/garden/phone wasn’t really possible.

Some people always have been dicks.
People go on about the spirit of the blitz but they forget about the robbery and rape that happened at the same time.

The bubble that a lot of people exist in is themselves and their phone, there’s no room for anything else.