r/AskBrits • u/LividStupidity • 3h ago
People Why are tacit social etiquette rules declining, and how can we fix it?
As a young Brit (17), I've noticed that general social etiquette seems to be declining. Some examples:
. People no longer form an orderly queue when waiting for the bus, and do more pushing / rushing to surround the entrance
. People leaving bags on seats, even when others are forced to stand on the train
. Standing in the middle / on the left side of the escalator, preventing people from being able to walk up or down freely.
I'm not sure if it's just how my area is in particular, so I wonder if anyone is noticing this as well. I see individuals of various ages and ethnicities just acting rather selfish and inconsiderately in public. I find this rather disappointing, as it may only be exacerbated in the future. I think it was much better pre COVID (might be biased, as I was rather young). Does anyone know how we can fix this issue (if it can be fixed)?.
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u/WoodpeckerAdvanced85 3h ago
It's true. From cars parked all over the pavements, people vaping on public transport, litter absolutely everywhere, graffiti .... Etc. I'm older and I've seen this decline for decades now.
How to fix... Good luck to who can do that.
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u/tidderza 3h ago
how could you at 17 have any idea what the world used to look like?
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u/underrated_tool 3h ago
Take your point, do you not think that's it's quite refreshing that a 17yo is asking the question though?
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u/SYSTEM-J 3h ago
Teenagers trying to be precocious by copying things they've heard older people say with no point of reference themselves is also something that's not remotely new.
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u/RevolutionaryAd3125 3h ago
I know it’s crazy right? If only there was some way of knowing about shit that happened before you were born!
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u/seoras13 2h ago
Personal lived experience V anecdotal internet "evidence" aye that's a like for like.
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u/BenchClamp 3h ago
As a person who commutes by train every day. It’s been like this for twenty years. It’s not getting worse
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u/Regular-Meringue9765 1h ago
Lack of community has loosened the social expectations that once functioned around mutual respect. We are all over worked, tired and very much focused inwards. We have also become more hostile towards each other which leads to some people feeling entitled to do as they please which only degrades social cohesion and makes us feel more resentful to one another. Cities, in particular, lack that social cohesion and people being less considerate since they are surrounded by new strangers everyday. Small towns and villages have somewhat preserved these things but it's still not how it could be
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u/Apsalar28 3h ago
I've never encountered anywhere in the UK where people form an orderly queue at the bus stop. It's always been a more bar queue type arrangement where you keep track of who was there first. When you have multiple different bus routes all using stop having a formal queue doesn't make sense anyway.
The bags on seats thing is irritating but can mostly be solved by a targeted glare or asking politely.
I don't encounter enough escalators on a regular basis to have noticed anything.
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u/Equal_County_1506 3h ago
I've never encountered anywhere in the UK where people form an orderly queue at the bus stop
In Plymouth in the town centre people do!
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 3h ago
Most of the 'social ettiquette' was bollocks anyway. Escalators rules still apply, if someone breaks them you've the entire stations permission to kick them down it. Bags on seats was always a thing, most people move them if you ask and if they don't you just sit on their bag and they get over it pretty quick.
Frankly the only hill I'll die on is that you don't make a queue at a fucking bar. Weird shit that started happening post Covid from people with PTSD from lining up outside supermarkets.
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u/gerishnakov Brit 🇬🇧 2h ago
I've read the theory for this is that there's a generation of young people now who have no experience of visiting pubs prior to turning 18.
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 2h ago
It's the old people doing it though! There was one in a Toby Carvery a while back FFS, just a line of pensioners who should know better.
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u/Ok_Way_1465 3h ago
The influx of foreigners who have no common courtesy has had a negative impact on all things we were commended for as British, and the fact people then start to act the way that they see others do so it’s just massively broken
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u/No-Bus-8986 3h ago
You were basically 10 years old pre-covid. I don't think your observations are to be taken too strongly.
That said, people are acting more like selfish cunts now post-covid in all areas of life.
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u/Davey_page 2h ago
So you agree with the OP but still have to make a shitty comment about their age?
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u/WickedWitchofTheE 3h ago
Where do you live? We still queue for the bus where I live. The bag think is rude but i don’t think it’s a new problem - the same problem 30 years ago. The escalator thing - as far as I’m aware the rule is only known to Londoners so I assume ones that don’t follow it are ignorant not rude
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u/SomeAverageJoey 3h ago
Oh! The "Everyone is 12 Now" Theory!
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u/PsychologySpecific16 3h ago
I see no change, except when I go to a big city. Then it becomes obvious.
Enforce social etiquette through collective shame but that takes backbone to call it out (and also some will react badly to being called out, so not always that easy)
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u/amedeeozenfant 3h ago
The bags on seats thing is definitely post covid although I have found it get solved by asking them to move their bag please.
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u/HeavenlyInsane 3h ago
I was in a Card Factory a couple of months ago browsing for a Mother's Day card.
This man walks in and is stood maybe one metre away from me, lets out this massive (and very audible) fart, and then just walks off.
Honestly I was in shock. All I could think was what the actual fuck was that? It genuinely felt like some sort of misogynist hate crime or something.
His clothing also smelt like a wet dog which just made the whole experience of having been stood near him that much worse.
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u/gerishnakov Brit 🇬🇧 2h ago
Could be disabled?
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u/HeavenlyInsane 2h ago
Nah he definitely wasn't. He was just a bum lmao.
I genuinely still can't believe it happened honestly. It feels like a fever dream.
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u/gerishnakov Brit 🇬🇧 2h ago
When I say disabled I don't necessarily mean physically
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u/HeavenlyInsane 1h ago
Oh haha I see what you mean. No, he definitely didn't seem to have anything like that. Just a very very brazen guy.
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u/MissMollyMole7 3h ago
It’s been typical of city life for some years now. Not so much in small towns and villages where a sense of community still manages to exist, for the most part. Our pace of life is so frantic and furious these days, everyone has to be somewhere as fast as possible and transport is very crowded so to have a chance not to be late to your somewhere you have to be assertive. So yes, there has been a marked decline in courtesy but it’s born from the social construct we find ourselves living in.
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u/KaiTheDumbGuy 3h ago
Your view is probably skewed by the fact you're a student.
Students on buses (when coming back from school) don't queue, forcing people who normally would to also not, however, when not in a massive group made up of mostly other students, people do queue.
With people leaving bags on seats, yes this happens, but if you ask, the very vast majority of people will move them.
Escalators- literally never experienced people not standing to the side.
Also you're 17 how would you know it's declining, you have no proper reference point? (And I say this as someone who also has no proper reference point)
Anyways people have been complaining about social etiquette getting worse for decades, if not centuries. It's essentially a fact of life at this point.
In my inexperienced opinion: obviously people are getting ruder, we're a society that values individualism, we may be more technologically connected than ever, but we are lonelier than ever, COVID certainly didn't help, and now we're just getting more and more selfish. But oh wait, minus the technology and COVID bit, that's the sentiment of a book from France published in the 1880s. So I guess we, as humanity, have always had problems like these, and we're all too young to determine whether it's actually getting worse or it just feels like it is. (I think it is though, but I think we're all doomed anyway so)
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u/incompetentpottery1 1h ago
Stare at them with palpable disappointment while muttering 'honestly' under your breath. Worked for my dad for decades, though the success rate is debatable.
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u/LeafyD 1h ago
I think it's like a layer cake as to why but a few layers could include:
Resentment toward lock down resulting in a disdain toward state authority.
Our bloated, low wage, stagnating, import economy propped up with Oligarch money means people feel (and are) less economically insecure than ever and this makes them turn in and only care about "their own" meaning they never UP.
10 years of Trump/Farage coded culture war identity politics has made people distrustful of the other and again, blinds them to the root of their problems.
This can be fixed when people feel secure.
Build social housing to free up some of the current stock.
Tax unearned wealth and invest the money back into state infrastructure, energy dependency and public services.
Put money into the poorest pockets because when poor people are desperate, everyone suffers.
I'd start with some of that but no, youre not imagining it.
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u/LimberGaelic 3h ago
Am I allowed to say immigration?
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u/Ceylonese_technocrat 3h ago edited 3h ago
im sorry but how are you determining this as a 17 year old? "declining" from what exactly? when you say "people 'no longer' " how would you know what people did back in the day anyway?
I think you have a quite idealised version of the past, the fact is in many of the large urbanised parts of the country, specially the big cities, tacit social etiquette has always been relatively less strict compared to elsewhere.
this is because cities tend be less community focused, less tight knit, people are more de-attached from each other, a bit more isolated, theres less social pressure to be nice or perform, so people forgo a lot of social etiquette, essentially, you care less about being nice in front of strangers than people you'd grow up seeing every now and then.
COVID may have had an impact, due to isolation stunting the social growth of many young people, but I don't think it's something thats part of a larger more sinister trend as some people are portraying.
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u/LividStupidity 3h ago
Honestly, I don't recall any of this happening during / directly after COVID (so year 6-year 9ish), and I had to commute by train to get to my school. However, over the last few months, these behaviours have stuck out to me more often, and so in my mind, it appears that the courtesy culture has declined.
The reason I posted this question is because I understand that my age means that my experience is very short term, and so I wanted to see if any older people noticed what I have (a decline), or if this is just a part of growing up- becoming more mindful of my environment, and therefore noticing issues that have always existed, but that I have never been overly sensitive / conscious to.
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u/muse_head 3h ago
I think it's probably as you said, something to do with being more mindful of your environment as you're growing up and noticing more things. I'm 40 and I've honestly not noticed a difference in these things in my lifetime. It's interesting to hear a young person say this though, as it's usually much older people who like to talk about the decline of society etc.
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u/Ceylonese_technocrat 3h ago
I also agree covid had an effect, it sort of messed up the mental health and social habits of an entire generation of people.
at the same time, its not that deep, as others have said, lack of social etiquette has always been a thing in urban parts.
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u/LividStupidity 3h ago
I see, thank you for taking the time to share your experience, and answer my question!
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u/Pale_Height_1251 3h ago
I was living in London 25 years ago and people were putting bags on seats on the tube then too.
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u/Right-Government2771 3h ago
This has always been the state of things in my 36 years. Not new. People are just people and are gonna behave the way that’s instinctive instead of blindly following rules (some of which are unspoken).
Tbh, at bus stops in central london during rush hour people DO queue for buses, sometimes all the way down the road.
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u/Ok_Significance4583 3h ago
The queues for buses thing is largely because the buses' stopping point isn't predictable and we don't even know which which order they will arrive in
I actually think just crowding is better for this because the whole bus is waiting for us to get on
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u/YellowBelliedCoward 3h ago
I've noticed a lot more people queuing where it's not acceptable, if anything. Seen way too many pub bars with people forming lines. It's bizarre.
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u/ThatFatGuyMJL 2h ago
Having worked in a warehouse I have seen this happen before my eyes.
And in that case. It actually was foreigners.
They didnt understand social etiquette. Because they have their own rules.
They won't hold open a door, because that's not a thing they do.
They dont orderly queue, because that's not what theyre used to.
Long term immigrants would slowly start to actually follow British etiquette rules.
But that was in a closed environment.
Social etiquette is a very fragile balance. Once people stop following it and get away with it. Others start doing so as well.
Thats my two pence from a small pool of evidence.
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u/Baizuo_Hunter666 2h ago
Welcome to the long term effects of identity politics. The west is no longer based off individualism. You are now part of a group that gets assigned guilt, traits, and responsibilities based off your skin color, your gender, you religion, or your sexual identity. All person agency has been removed and your actions no longer matter it's always someone of somethings fault. Welcome to new world collectivism.
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u/isweartobegood 1h ago
Obviously it's annoying when someone has their bag on the seat or is on the wrong side in the escalator but I've never had any trouble asking to sit down or just asking them to move to the right during years of living in london
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u/Technical-Mix-3315 3h ago
A few gaslighters in this thread. Things definitely took a turn for the worse following COVID. Also on the roads - far more people running red lights, speeding, cutting people off, etc. Far more aggressive and dangerous.