“How Rude Became Cool”
by Rev. Peter E. Bauer
I’m not quite sure when this bad behavior started, but around 2003 I received an E-Mail from a Senior female Chaplain retired from the military. The message in the E-Mail was simple:
She wrote “ I don’t understand people who won’t respond and answer their E-Mail messages and phone calls . “
Brilliant, I thought, I couldn’t agree more. I noticed at that time and I even notice it more now, the callous disregard some people exhibit with regard to digital communication. One can send a message, even with time-sensitive enclosures, and you can end up not hearing anything for days, perhaps weeks, maybe never.
What can be attributed to this display of blatant rude behavior ? One of the consequences that digital communication has produced is this sense of remote contact. If you worked in the same building with someone else, and you didn’t get a response to something important, you could always go down to their office and find out why they weren’t responding.
Online communication doesn’t afford that same sense of in the flesh immediacy, instead now you get an out of office message along with an emoji. You can sometimes feel like screaming at the those little smiley faces. The experience can be so disingenuous.
Of course, this whole process of selectivity regarding who is entered into one’s orbit of influence versus who is not didn’t develop overnight. Reflect back to the 1980’s when the Studio 54 nightclub was the place to be seen in New York. There would be lines of people trying to get in and bouncers would screen the crowd to determine by appearance and buzz energy who would be admitted into the sacred inner sanctum.
Fast forward twenty years, and Facebook emerged with its digital feature of “ friending “ versus “ unfriending “ someone. Now you had digital excommunication. You didn’t have to send a rejection letter, not even a “ Dear John “ letter, just a click on “ unfriend “ would do the trick. It’s like dropping a bomb on someone without blowing up buildings.
So now digital communication can bring us immediacy, speed, and instant response when its needed or when senders and receivers are responsible. Then again, digital communication can also bring miscommunication or messages getting lost in translation. Such lack of response can also generate hurt feelings, and attitudes of mistrust.
So, what is the prescription for contemporary digital etiquette ? How can you remain productive and yet remain courteous and humane in your communications with others ? The lack of consideration that I was witnessed with some recipients, even church officials, is breathtaking. It makes me wonder, especially with the latter, that if I’m treated this way, why would anyone else in the world want to go near them for any assistance ?
I once had a discussion with a church colleague who was upset that didn’t communicate with him in a certain way. My response was:
“Well , you know there is this thing called the telephone. If this was so crucial and important for you, you could have called me. “
How twentieth century of me to think that some people would be willing to talk to someone over the phone instead of resorting to digital neglect and marginalization ?
If we are going to progress as a civilization, it will require that we rediscover manners, not only saying “thank you “ but showing real appreciation when someone takes the time to write ( digitally ) and express their thoughts and concerns. When people don’t respond to such correspondence, they diminish their humanity and the behavior reduces everyone and everything to being merely objects that can be manipulated and used.
At this point, I would settle for a hand-written letter.
As humans, I believe that we are capable of so much more.
May it be so.
