To think the level of inconsideration around is staggering?

[CoralCrab]

It feels like people have become more self-absorbed and less aware of how their actions affect others. Whether it’s blasting music in public, not cleaning up after themselves, ignoring basic etiquette, or just a general lack of courtesy, I’m constantly noticing behaviour that seems thoughtless at best and outright rude at worst.

I don’t know if this has always been the case and I’m just more aware of it now or if people really have become more inconsiderate over time. AIBU to think that basic respect and awareness of others are disappearing? Or is this just normal and I need to stop expecting better?

Only when older people are displaying entitled behaviour which is fair enough

They are likely leaving the country once they have finished uni, so they won't be here for much longer. So that will be two awful young people gone which should make some of the oldies happy.

That isn't what you said though. You said you tell your teenagers to ignore older people as they've had plenty, the 'plenty' apparently being COVID and Brexit! And saying young people leaving the country should make some oldies happy is you doing it again, why would it make anyone happy? You seem strangely keen to teach your kids that old people hate them, I don't know what benefit there is in doing that.

I like teenagers, I own 2. As I said upthread, when I walked to the shops the other day the only group I passed who didn't take up the whole path and force me into the road, was a group of teenagers in hoodies. Discussing what seems to be a trend of people (not just teenagers) being less socially aware and less considerate, isn't a personal attack on your children and I don't know why you'd want them to think that people are against them. If they're well mannered, why would anyone be?

Something I've noticed recently, as we've been out walking locally in an area that can get quite busy at the weekend. In addition to the disgusting amount of litter about, people will NOT tell their children what to do at all. Example - we were walking along and a family were walking towards us going the other way on the path. The child on a bike was cycling right at us, the parents said nothing. Then we had to stand apart for the child to go through the middle of us while the parents apologised!! I was incredulous - why on earth would you not direct your child to stay on their side of the path?! They clearly just didn't see it was their jobs as parents to direct their child in how to behave. It breeds this sense of entitlement that they get to do what they want, and everyone has to get out of their way.

And don't even get me started on the loud music playing outside whenever the sun is out. I feel I can't escape anywhere that hadn't been ruined by other people by either litter, noise, or traffic. Once at the train station my husband asked a kid to stop playing music on his phone and the kid threatened him with a martial art! People have no respect for anyone else any more.

I bet you encourage your children to use “Karen” as an insult too.

Can you go with your children when they leave, please?

Taught both my DC the same values. I was one of the "what would the neighbours think" generation and still am a bit like that. The eldest doesn't give two ducks about anything and the youngest is quite conformist. The eldest read from many diverse sources and the youngest not quite so much. So what conclusion can we draw from this? I'd really like to know what I did wrong

Very true

In my experience it's mostly men of 20-35. I run a pub and I've lost count of how many men have called me a bitch and worse recently.

The Saturday of the last day of 6 nations, I had some utter knob come in, we were packed as we had rugby fans on one side and a christening on the other (and they were a nightmare as well, left aright tip to tidy up when they left). I was going from person to person, I love working a busy bar.

So he asks for a pint and a half of the same drink, watches me pour them. I ask for the payment of it's cash or card. He then says he asked for two half pints, not a pint and a half. I knew he hadn't. So I said no you didn't, how would you like to pay. Two of my regulars backed me up as they heard him.
He leans over the bar, and says "it's not my fault if you don't listen you fucking thick bitch".

His wife then said to him she heard what he ordered and he turned to her and told her to shut up "you c**t"

At that point I told him to leave, to be fair for his safety as we have some older guys who are regulars who wanted to remove him for me bless them.

You could tell he talks to people like that regularly as it came so naturally.

It happens regularly though.

@frozendaisyYou do sound particularly unpleasant.

Decided not to drive to a shopping centre today.

On the train out (not busy) there were two family groups with phones on for the kids to watch, and another couple watching videos, all with volume in. I moved, but then a bloke decided to have a fairly loud phone convo across the aisle from me.

Now on the train home and there have been two people with their phone volumes on, and a girl across the aisle who just sprayed her clothes all over with deodorant.

Next time I’ll take my car.

What a bunch of selfish people! I try to book quiet carriage but even there some people couldn’t care less .

This is just a suburban London train so no bookings, no quiet carriage. And it’s a walk through train so you can’t even move to the next carriage to get away from it.

I was going to write my own but you've said exactly my thoughts. I'm also mid 40's.

Many people are plain rude. train companies & TFL need to put signs up asking people to be considerate with noise , feet on seats etc . On trains, the ticket inspectors say nothing to such people .

100% agree ! I also think Covid showed how many selfish people are out there - people on trains without masks, even coughing in enclosed spaces without wearing masks

I’m seeing entitlement at work too. A colleague I’d never met emailed to request some training on an application (I’m not a trainer). I copied in a colleague in my reply and requested that he invite her as she was much more knowledgeable about it than I. He proceeded to reply asking about times and kept removing my colleague from the email.

We agreed a time for the call whereupon he said he would not be able to join the call and could we record it for him!
I suggested it would be better to reschedule and suggested a couple of times that worked for me.
He replied “2pm please” clearly wanting me to set up the call he’d requested.
I said fine I will await your invitation.
I was fuming 😡

I had a cougher on the bus today, that really performative type of cough, literally every 2 minutes and with absolutely no attempt to cover his mouth I moved as far away from him as possible but (and I don't know what got into me because I wouldn't usually say anything!) the absolute disregard for everyone else on the bus tipped me over the edge today and I ended up shouting at him that it was disgusting not to cover his mouth when he coughs

I'm not particularly proud of myself but I do think more of us need to speak up, the bus/train wankers (my pet name for inconsiderate arseholes on public transport!) get away with it because no one says anything and that needs to change. There appears to be a lot of us who find this stuff unacceptable so we need to back each other up too, strength in numbers and all that!

I don’t blame you.

I just like a bit of peace and wish people were more considerate on trains

I agree , we need to start shaming these people - as long as they don’t look like they’ll stab us !

Wow that’s so rude and entitled of him! Where are some peoples manners nowadays .

I wrote a complaint to TFL about people playing their phones out loud. They wrote back with a lovely reply saying they'd ask the staff to keep reminding people not to do it. All very thoughtful and helpful.
Sadly nothing has changed.

I am not a frequent user of the tube but I have never once heard staff request this, I’d be interested to know if regularly tube users have.

Meanwhile Sadiq Khan seems very keen on rolling out 5G to the whole network IIRC.

No. Doesn’t happen.

I feel angry every time I go out. In the past couple of years I've started to question if I'm autistic, but I don't think I am because I didn't used to feel like this. It's like my sympathetic nervous system is constantly being activated and I'm caught in a feedback loop I have no hope of escaping.

I'm sick of being pushed into the road and I'm sick of not being able to get past people dawdling four or five abreast across the pavement.

I find other people's noise so stressful. The phones, the loudspeakers, the ipads, tinny music from bluetooth speakers in public spaces, the people who sit with their engine running, jabbering on their handsfree with the car acting as an amplifier so that people two streets away can hear the conversation. The screeching.

I'm fed up of runners passing ridiculously close to me in the park when there's a huge path. Often I don't hear them approaching over the traffic noise so it makes me jump. I'm fed up of having to dodge out the way of runners flying round street corners with no thought as to whether there could be a pedestrian approaching.

I live near a main road. The road noise didn't bother me so much when I moved here nearly a decade ago, but now it drives me crazy. I wondered if the road was busier than it used to be, but when I looked at the traffic data I found it hasn't increased much. Then it dawned on me - it's because the vast majority of vehicles round here now are SUVs, which create more road noise than hatchbacks.

Noise pollution can have serious impacts on people's health:

Epidemiologic studies show that exposure to high levels of road traffic noise for several years lead to numerous adverse health outcomes, including premature deaths, ischemic heart disease (IHD), chronic sleep disturbances, and increased annoyance. Mechanistically, noise exposure triggers oxidative stress, inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, and circadian rhythm disruptions. These processes involve the activation of NADPH oxidase, mitochondrial dysfunction, and nitric oxide synthase uncoupling, leading to vascular and cardiac damage.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00732-4

It's a big problem, but it's not being taken into consideration during planning. People who struggle with it are often told to stop moaning or told they must be autistic. It's pissing off birds and making them aggressive https://www.aru.ac.uk/news/galapagos-birds-exhibit-road-rage-due-to-noise It makes me feel aggressive. It's all too much.

@TheFatCatsWhiskers1

I'm sick of being pushed into the road and I'm sick of not being able to get past people dawdling four or five abreast across the pavement......I'm fed up of runners passing ridiculously close to me in the park when there's a huge path.

Same here. I walk on our canal footpath 3 or 4 times a day getting to/from work and the amount of people who just barge past, whether walkers, cyclists, or joggers - they just don't give any respect or consideration to others, and I'm not a slow dawdler, I'm walking fast and I stick to the left of the footpath, not mindlessly wandering around randomly. No excuse, they're just inconsiderate arseholes.

Rambling groups are the worst, 3 or 4 abreast and they're not going into single file for anyone nor anything. Well they do now! As I just stick to my ground and they're going to bang into me if they don't actually show some consideration and go into narrow formation. I'm not going to jump into the hedge for them anymore!

Same when I'm walking on the left edge of the pavement, and people come the other way also hugging the same edge and clearly expect me to move to the right to let them past without them changing their course. Nope. I stay left these days and they have to move to their left to pass me, as they should in the first place by using the same logic as when driving you stay left. People have clearly forgotten the long established etiquette that you walk on the left of the path, it's so that on, say, a pavement, you're on the closer side to the road so you can see oncoming traffic and people walking in the same direction as traffic walk on the left of the pavement their way, so they're further away from the close traffic. (Similar to how going back, the man would walk on the traffic side of the pavement letting his female partner walk further away from traffic and to protect her).

Long standing etiquette, manners, etc have really disappeared these days.

@taxguru People have clearly forgotten the long established etiquette

This has reminded me of another pet peeve. The long established etiquette is that you let people LEAVE a shop/building/train/bus before you barge in. So few people seem to bother with this now, or maybe they weren't taught in the first place.

I'm not even that old, mid 30s, and I was brought up with these things. At school the 'three Cs' were hammered into us: courteous, considerate and conscientious, and we were often reminded that we are not the most important people in the room. I've spent my whole life trying my best to be considerate towards other people. I hate the thought of annoying people. I wouldn't sit out on my balcony with ShiteFM blasting all day on tinny speakers, or have an hour long video call out there on loudspeaker. I wouldn't stand in the hallway outside of other people's flats at all times of day and night having loud conversations with visitors, or let my child stand outside my neighbour's door playing a sodding recorder.

On these kinds of threads people are always quick to say 'if you don't like it, don't live in a flat', as if living in a flat entitles people to be noisy, inconsiderate arseholes. If I could afford not to live in a flat I would. Of course some noise is unavoidable, which is fine, but plenty of it is avoidable if people would just stop and think for a moment about its impact on others.

Arrrghhhhhh!

@TheFatCatsWhiskers1

This has reminded me of another pet peeve. The long established etiquette is that you let people LEAVE a shop/building/train/bus before you barge in. So few people seem to bother with this now, or maybe they weren't taught in the first place.

Thankfully I don't have to regularly use public transport, so that's one annoyance I don't have to put up with. But yes, shops are indeed a pain when no one lets you in, especially when it's raining outside. Even worse when people don't hold a door open for you and it bangs in your face!