How Rude! Are We in an Etiquette Epidemic?

There is a man who lives in my apartment building. Let’s call him Meatball.

Meatball likes to use the apartment gym every morning before work around the same time that I do. Most residents who use the gym wear headphones while working out, as is the unspoken etiquette in every communal exercise space. But Meatball seems to have decided that this common courtesy does not apply to him: he likes to play music from a portable speaker, and everyone else in our modestly-sized gym can hear it.

One day, fed up after months of this, I summoned the courage to speak to him.

“You probably didn’t notice the signs,” I said, playing dumb, pointing towards the multiple posters that indicate no external music is allowed. “But you’re not actually supposed to play music out loud here.”

“You have headphones in, though,” he said, as if me following the rules was reason enough for him not to.

“Yeah, but it’s still annoying,” I said. He shrugged and I left, thinking perhaps I’d solved the issue.

The next day, though, there he was, playing his music. I went up to him again and, this time with a little more gusto, asked him to turn it off.

His response?

“No.”

Simple as that. He didn’t want to, so he wouldn’t. I now go to the gym earlier to avoid him.

The experience, albeit highly specific to my own little life, has got me thinking a lot about the wider erosion of social decency. It’s something I’ve increasingly noticed over the last few years, particularly since coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Perhaps naively, I had thought that a post-pandemic world would make us more compassionate and friendly — nothing unites people like a shared struggle, after all, and this one was shared by everyone on earth. But instead, it seems as though it’s made us more insular than ever.

When I’m out and about in Vancouver, I notice when someone holds the door for someone else, and when that someone else says thank you. I pay attention to the times when someone waves a hand in gratitude after I let their car in front of me during rush hour, or when someone says hello or smiles — or, heck, even just looks me in the eyes — as I join them in an elevator.

I am no saint, to be sure, but contemporary rudeness stands out to me like a sunflower in a field of daisies: obvious and wrong.

I internally cringe when someone plays music loudly on public transit (or worse, on an airplane), when a group of people strolling down the sidewalk don’t move over for someone coming the other direction, or when I ask a barista how their day is going and all I receive in response is a stony, “What can I get you?” Oof. It hurts the soul.

The politeness plight

It seems to me that we’re in something of an etiquette epidemic, and I’m not alone in thinking this.

“Are we in a crisis of rudeness?” asks a Vox article published in August.

“Society certainly seems to think we’ve collectively gotten more rude,” writes Allie Volpe. “According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, nearly half of the country [USA] believes people’s behavior is more impolite than before the pandemic. Enter any public space and you’re bound to encounter someone having a phone call on speaker, fellow passengers mixing up egg salad on a plane or students leaving class unannounced. These incidents inevitably become flashpoints of heated debate online.”

Closer to home, wife-and-husband duo Lisa and Patrick Beecroft own Gabi & Jules bakery, which has locations in Port Moody and Burnaby. The couple has an autistic daughter, and has made it a priority to foster a safe and inclusive workplace; many of their staff identify as neurodivergent. But customers aren’t always understanding. Late last year, Lisa published a heartfelt Facebook post about the uptick in rudeness towards her employees.

“In recent months, we have seen an increase in the mistreatment of some [of] our team members by some of our customers,” she wrote.

“There’s become frequent occurrences of rudeness, impatience and, in some cases, just blatant hostility towards our team. For us, this treatment of our valued team members is simply unacceptable. We refuse to just let it slide and say ‘it’s part of being in customer service’ because it absolutely should not be.” (The post, it’s worth noting, was met with an outpouring of support.)

I reached out to Vancouver-based Research Co. for this article because the firm conducted a Canada-wide survey on manners back in 2019.

The owner responded with data from a new province-specific poll conducted for The Tyee. In the 2019 results, 61 per cent of British Columbians noted witnessing someone hold the door open for a stranger; in the 2025 results, that number dips to 53 per cent. Similarly, the 2019 poll had 32 per cent of respondents observing someone giving up their seat on public transit for a person who was pregnant, disabled or elderly; in 2025, that lowers to 26 per cent.

(It’s not all bad, though: some numbers improved for the better, including those who experienced rude customer service at a store, and those who saw someone checking their phone during a meeting or social event. Not all hope is lost!)

Still, even American judge Judy Sheindlin — also known as Judge Judy — has been thinking about common decency lately.

In a recent interview for Good Hang, a podcast hosted by comedian and producer Amy Poehler, Sheindlin describes how she likes kvetching (a Yiddish word for the art of the complaint). She kvetches, in this case, about people who don’t pick up after their dogs, and ponders what kind of punishment they should receive (because while leaving dog waste in public is a fineable offence in many places, it is not often enforced).

“Death,” she jokes, “is probably a little too exaggerated.”

‘Catching rudeness is like catching a cold’

Vancouver-based etiquette expert and consultant Ann Elizabeth Burnett, who works with both kids and adults, observes that “bad manners seem to be in the forefront today more than ever, from what I see.”

According to her, these social behaviours are largely a result of the proliferation of the smartphone.

“There seems to be an overwhelming preoccupation, if not infatuation, with online information,” she tells me. The result is that people are engaging more frequently in online spaces and less frequently with the real people in their lives. “It’s like everyone is hiding under a digital cloud with their phones and their ear pods.”

Jerry Hinbest, a sociology professor at Vancouver Island University, agrees. Our hyper-connected online reality has “given us permission to basically be focused on all these distant people rather than the people who are directly in front of us,” he explains.

“I’ve been to conferences where you’re supposed to have a topic to talk about during the break among the people at your table. And at the table, there’s seven or eight professional people from different universities, all sitting on their phones texting other people about what’s going on, rather than talking to one another.”

Hinbest and Burnett both point to the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor in shaping how we behave in society today. Social distancing made us rely on technology to stay connected with each other, and it caused some of our offline interpersonal skills to atrophy.

On top of that, Burnett mentions two other probable causes of the erosion of politeness: a lack of accountability, particularly in digital settings, where there are no consequences for being rude (or downright mean); as well as our instant-gratification culture, which breeds impatience (which in turn can lead to unfounded hostility).

There are real-world consequences for these behaviours. A 2020 pilot study found that witnessing rudeness actually decreases productivity and performance, especially when it comes to creative thinking.

And a study from 2016 discovered that “catching rudeness is like catching a cold” — meaning that if we witness impoliteness, we are more likely to behave that way ourselves.

Surrounded by people, but as lonely as ever

“In the last five or six years, I think the facade of niceness, which Canada is very known for, has slipped a little bit,” reflects Josh Romyn, a Vancouver-based comedian and barista.

“But I do think people are more thirsty for human connection. So I think people are more open to actual conversations than they have been in the past, even though there might be less ‘good mornings’ and generalized ‘how are yous.’ I think people are more interested in actually connecting with, in this context, their barista or their neighbours.”

Romyn raises an important point: humans need connection, especially when the going gets tough.

A survey conducted by Narrative Research earlier this year found that 51 per cent of respondents think Canadians are becoming ruder — and that they believe stress is a key factor.

It’s an unignorable part of the equation, especially in a city like Vancouver, where the cost of living is unsustainable and we are in dire need of better mental health care.

In the wider world, there are horrific wars taking place, not to mention the head-shaking rollback of rights and freedoms that continues to unfold with our neighbours to the south. It’s a lot, and I feel it, too.

But I’d argue that’s why we need etiquette more than ever.

Those simple moments between strangers — holding the elevator for someone or asking a grocery store cashier how they’re doing — are what tether us to our humanity. They’re what make us feel like a part of something: not a religion, not an improv troupe, not a running club, not even an apartment gym (oh, Meatball!), but a city. A society.

A quick hi, a moment of eye contact, a shy smile: simple acknowledgements of existence are an easy and free way to make someone feel less alone. To quite literally make someone feel seen.

“Manners are not about outdated rules — they’re about respect for others at all times,” says Burnett. “And I think that as a society, we have to be careful that if we don’t use it, we’ll lose it. If this becomes the norm with everyone, what hope have we got? Reframing etiquette as a tool for kindness and community restores its relevance.”

Cliche as it may be, it’s cool to be kind. And it starts with all of us as individuals. Much the same way that negative behaviours are infectious, so too are positive ones.

“Manners are contagious,” Burnett says. “A smile, a thank you or a patient response sets a visible standard that others will mirror.”

A few weekends ago, on a long walk through East Van with my partner, I was busy yammering on about this very article, my discoveries so far and my hope for a future filled with common decency.

At one point, snapping out of my impassioned speech, I looked ahead and noticed a young woman walking towards us. As she got closer, we made eye contact — and, as if on cue, she smiled.