Manners are disappearing in society

[cobbledstone]

I'm heading towards my 6th decade, definitely not 'young' anymore.

I'm starting to notice that the young - those in their 20's, 30's - have much less regard for manners than my generation.

No thank you letters. Don't respond to invitations until last minute (if at all) and won't hesitate to cancel something via text just because it suits.

On their phone at the supermarket instead of acknowledging the cashier.

I'm in the middle of selling our house and it's amazed me just how many potential buyers in that age group have simply disappeared - with zero feedback, positive or negative. One buyer I gave up Sat and Sun for (so her partner could come to look) wasting time with my family and her feedback to the EA was, I was simply being nosey.

FFS!

AIBU? Are 20/30 somethings less concerned about other peoples feelings/commitments/time?

@ThePaperTrail

Surprised nobody had already

I'm not kidding I had to write an actual letter. Trying to come up with news to share with a total stranger who you knew little about was so awkward.

Society's rules change over time. Young people aren't ruder than older people, they just have slightly different rules. I would say this thread is pretty rude!

I find poor manners within every age range.

However there are customs that have changed, like letter writing. That really isn't done anymore in my social circle. A WhatsApp message of thanks is usually what suffices.

It didn't feel courteous it just felt fake. You either have a meaningful relationship and contact with another person or you don't, if you do then you'd just send the thanks via whatever form of contact you already have surely.

Whilst I agree to some extent about the cancelling thing, that’s just because it’s easier to do now with the rise of technology.
Letter writing is a thing of the past because times have moved on.

Personally, I’ve witnessed far more instances of the older generation being rude or doing something with a ‘ I don’t give a toss’ attitude compared to the younger generation

Same here. I think there is bad manners across all generations, but given how people like the OP like to think it's just young people who are rude, I always find it surprising how older people are rude and entitled. You would expect more from someone who is older and wiser.

Apologies, my first post was in answer to your AIBU but failed to deal with your real problem of selling your house and how many young potential buyers disappear without giving you any feed back.

Most people visiting a house for sale won't give feedbacks to the owner. Some will make comments to the agent, most will simply do the tour without making comments, it's part and parcel of buying/selling a house.

I am in my 30s and I'm very polite. I always have been.

I actually find after covid and lockdown, that some people, no general age, seem to be really inpatient. I find some people lack manners more especially if I have held the door open for them and they just saunter through. Or just shove in front of you without saying excuse me. I think people on phones at counters are rude as well. I don't mean paying with them of course.

Or people asking questions without a please or thank you when they get a response. Or when talking to someobe serving them, I want a tea (for instance) no please or anything. Makes me recoil and always try to be friendly to people on service as I think they get the shit stick with people a lot.

My experience at the moment is the older generation are more entitled and opinionated. But that's only certain people though, all generations come with a quirk. I call my inlaws Generation Know It All 🙂 (ps I get on with them well)

Someone viewing a property you’re selling is not a buyer or even a potential buyer until they make an offer. They are under no obligation to give you feedback on your home.
Estate agents often take people to multiple properties in one day. If they aren’t interested they move on. Just because they are in their 20s or 30s doesn’t mean they aren’t busy and don’t have a life, why would they give you a running commentary of your home or explain why they aren’t interested?
If your home isn’t selling it’s down to you and your estate agent to make changes to the strategy.

Thank you letters have obviously been replaced as technology has moved on. They are slow to send and require things to do it. A phone call or text doesn’t. It’s not bad manners is just time moving on.

But if it's fake for your children to say thank you themselves, why accept the present? Even if you hate a present, you still say thank you because someone went to time and effort to give it.
I remember going through a rough time and a friend of my sister sent me a brooch to cheer me up. I didn't know her but I didn't thank her through my sister, I contacted her myself. The present and thought was for me, not my sister so the thanks would come from me.
But I'm from a different generation so I guess if you think that your thanks is enough, it's just a the new way of doing things. Not better, not worse. Just different.

I’m the same age bracket as you, and I would say your examples sound old fashioned. People are too busy to write on a piece of paper, buy a stamp, get the letter physically transported to someone else, only for it to go in the bin. Times and methods are changing.
however, what I do find rude is people playing their music on public transport without headphones, and I see that a lot around.

Honestly I wish my parents had told them they don't need to send anything. I don't think that they even had any contact with these people at that point.

My parents were the first in their family not to live near extended family and seemed to just expect us to feel a strong affinity for these complete strangers because of some shared genetics. I think I'm more realistic about expecting my children to feel this way about people they haven't met.

I’m another one who personally finds the Boomer generation far more rude and entitled than any other (while also having a highly developed sense of exceptionalism, viewing themselves as a kind of ‘Golden Generation’ and everyone else as weak and feckless).

Where I live a stamp is now £1.50, noone is sending thank you cards. Haven’t done it since I was a child.

Yeah they can’t count either

I completely agree. I find the older generation, 60 + more rude, e.g, not saying thank you when you hold doors open, pushing in queues. When I was pregnant with my first child at 32, several ladies at a bus stop in their seventies started a conversation with me at a bus stop and commented that I was too young to be pregnant. If transpired that they thought I was a teenager and not married as I had no rings in my wedding finger. I wasn’t wearing any my fingers had blown up. Plus, so what if I wasn’t married?

I don't think it's generation thing
I'm in my mid 40's but I find lots of people of all ages can be rude and generally social niceties have disappeared quite a bit.
My mum was the rudest person ever until she got dementia and my FIL (70's) is awful and will literally ignore people in front of him, if it doesn't suit.
I think people generally have disappeared behind phones and keyboards to not reply unless it's a briefest of text, which often they mean to do but forget. I think we were sliding that way but the pandemic supercharged it and people withdrew and didn't quite come back.
I send thank you cards and occasionally even receive them but they have gone generally in lieu of txts & calls and in some cases radio silence. My kids hate it but I still make them do them too and I hope it'll stick a little bit at least.
I always respond to invitations but no longer expect everyone to reply.
Home buyers - well that's a whole different ball game. Sold mums house last year (care home) and in the end went to sealed bids - went for the lovely polite first time buyers in their 20's because I hoped from speaking to them they would be no trouble unlike the slightly (£5) higher bid from a 60something who wanted to rent it out as an investment who was a right PiTa before we'd even accepted.
Walking through the village you get hellos from most people from children to the elderly , it's generally a friendly bunch (with backstabbing on the village FB page) but there are always a few misery guts usually 'young retired' who don't even acknowledge they are walking past anyone. I don't judge or take it personally it's not a big thing & I don't know what's going on in their lives.

I agree that it's really an 'upbringing' thing, not an age thing.

I've met rude and delightful people from all generations, but I suppose it does shock me more when I encounter a rude older person - simply because I expect older to mean wiser, but it doesn't always. Horrible oiky teenagers become oiky middle-aged and then elderly people!

I used to hate writing thank you letters but as an adult sending things to relatives overseas it would be nice to know if things actually arrived! A text or e-mail would be fine but sometimes its like chucking things into a void.

Nah, they are just down the road, picking up ....

They seem to think they should automatically get the respect that their parents got - forgetting that they didn't fight in the war - and just benefitted from everything that came after - the foundations of which was laid by their parents and grandparents. Boomers, on the other hand, have spent many years pulling the ladder up - eg the free education ladder that they benefitted from.

Letter writing is an anachronism nowadays. It’s died out because it’s unnecessary. Much like telegrams when people got married. This was a thing up to the 70s - their dying out was not because bad manners were involved.

Most people I meet are polite but I have encountered bad manners from people of all ages. I worked on the elections a couple of weeks ago. The only rude voters I encountered, were without exception, the older ones.

I would - but then I probably would make a rubbish cashier.