Recently, while taking the metro to work, I encountered something that shocked me. The train was pulling up, just as the man in front of me tapped to pay to go through the gate, and a woman pushed past me to cut me in line. I still made the train (after I briefly considered acting in a way that would have made us both late for work), but as I passed each stop I got angrier and angrier. Why did she think her commute was more important than someone else’s? We learn to wait our turn when we’re children — why was that lesson lost all these years later?
I’m not the only one irritated by this kind of thing. Almost half of Americans say that they’ve noticed people are ruder in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Whether it’s poor behavior at the airport or blasting music from your phone with no headphones in public, it’s like people don’t know how to act anymore.
Kirsty Sedgman is a professor at the University of Bristol and the author of the book On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better. She argues that while people might not mind them as much anymore, manners are important.
“They encourage us to think about others and to behave in ways that are not antisocial and potentially even dangerous,” she told Vox. “How can we have these conversations so that we figure out what we all want social life and public space to be like in a way that benefits everybody and doesn’t accidentally exclude [anyone]?
While some etiquette rules are pretty self explanatory (let’s not cut in line!), others are more difficult to navigate. “I always try to make a point and I’m not perfect, believe me,” Sedgman said. “I’m not saying that I know how to behave in every single circumstance and I’m always right. I’m no Emily Post.”
Post was the socialite who literally wrote the book on the subject: Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home was first published in the 1920s. More than a century later, her family is still in the business of teaching us how to mind our manners.
Lizzie Post is Emily Post’s great-great granddaughter and co-president of the Emily Post Institute. That’s a title and pedigree that could come with a lot of pressure. But Post says it’s all about your audience. “A lot of times, as long as I don’t get the sense that they would prefer a very formalized version of me, I try to reassure people: laugh, joke, swear, it’s okay,” Post said.
Audience isn’t the only thing that’s changed — the times have too. How has etiquette shifted over the years? And how do we navigate newer things — like our phones? We find out that and more on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast.
Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Post, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.
For a long time etiquette has just been something that’s agreed upon. You have to have certain manners to socialize in certain circles and within certain classes. But I think that’s changed. Why do you think that’s happened?
My great-great-grandmother wrote from 1922 to 1960. While she talked about the standards of the day, she also allowed those standards to change. Think about 1922 to 1960 — there were huge swings in how people behaved. Chaperones were gone from the book by her second edition. Life was changing and evolving and she changed and evolved with it.
Etiquette is a French word — it sounds fancy. I think that it can very easily have these connotations of being something that is about a secret society, or it’s only about formality, or it’s only for people who are very wealthy. It can also start to feel a lot like judgment.
One of the reasons etiquette can feel so out of sorts, particularly right now, is because times are changing and they’re just changing really quickly.
I think phone etiquette is really, really emblematic of that. One thing that is so common is people playing music or having their phone on speaker, no headphones. Do we just not know how to act when it comes to our phones?
There are definitely rules of courtesy and blaring anything out of your phone, whether it’s a phone call, it’s a FaceTime call, it’s your TikTok feed, or that movie that you’re watching, is all inappropriate when other people are a captive audience and haven’t asked to be.
It’s this mindful moment where people forget where they are. They’re so used to being in their own world with their phone six inches from their face that they forget that anyone can even hear what it is that they’re doing on their phone at that particular moment.
It’s really hard to correct this behavior because generally, we don’t correct other people’s behaviors.
I admit, especially in public spaces, I am Team Mind My Business. But at what point do you step in?
It’s a really tough judgment call, and it’s going to be different for every situation.
I think that when I am in a space that I’m only going to occupy for a short time, I am telling myself, “Mind my own business, don’t worry about it.” When it’s that train ride that we’re starting, or that four-hour flight that you’re on, I think we start to have to say something and to ask, “Hey, could you put some headphones on while you’re enjoying that or watching that or on your call?”
I say, “Could you,” because they might not have headphones with them, but even if they don’t, it’s a reminder. It’s like that check of awareness that, “Oh, this thing I’m doing is impacting people around me.”
Here’s the rub: You can’t control other people’s behavior. You cannot control if this person is going to get defensive. If you’re going to ask the question, be prepared for rudeness in return. And I hate saying that, but it is the reality. We can’t control other people’s behavior.
So there’s clearly a wrong way to use speakerphone and FaceTime. What’s the right way to use them?
We do a lot of talking on our speakerphones, even in our own homes. You might be moving from one room to another, passing through the living room where people are watching TV or you’re in the kitchen and all of a sudden a roommate has come into the room while you’re on a call that’s on speakerphone. You really want to let the person on the other end of the phone know that there’s other people present now.
My cousin is so good about this. He always tells his daughter when she gets into the car, “Hey, Aunt Lizzie is on the phone. Say hi to her.” Then I know to watch my language. She knows to say hi to her auntie. And that’s just so much nicer than all of a sudden having a voice pop up and realizing, “Oh my gosh, I was just telling a really personal story and I didn’t realize there was a bigger audience for it.”
What about having your phone on the table you’re at dinner? People feel very passionately about that one.
I am so bad about this one. I often have mine face down on the table. The funny thing is, I’m not looking for someone to call with an interruption, but it’s not good etiquette.
It is really best to have that phone put away, to make sure that it’s on silent and it’s not going to interrupt your time together. To have it there, especially face up where any message that comes in is now going to catch the attention of everyone at the table, that’s an unnecessary distraction.
Is there an obligation when you need to text someone back? Does it have to be within a certain time? You go about your day and the next thing you know, you look at your phone and you have 80 unread texts and it’s like, “Oh no, what do I do? My friends will all be mad at me.”
I wish there was, but it depends on the text itself.
The ones I don’t think you should wait on is when friends or potential romantic partners offer a time to get together. Don’t let that sit. If there’s a reason why you’re letting it sit, talk to someone about that. Say, “Oh, I’ve got to check with my partner about that. I know we had talked about doing something else Saturday at that time.”
Give them some kind of an understanding, because it’s a really beautiful thing to be invited to go spend time with someone. I think we want to treasure that a little more than we do in today’s age.
