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In America, good manners just keep on disappearing

WASHINGTON - Americans' fast-paced, high-tech existence has taken a toll on civility.

From road rage in the morning commute to high decibel cell-phone conversations that ruin dinner out, men and women behaving badly have become the hallmark of a hurry-up world.

An increasing informality combined with self-absorbed communication gadgets and a demand for instant gratification have strained common courtesies to the breaking point.

"All of these things lead to a world with more stress, more chances for people to be rude to each other," said Peter Post, a descendent of etiquette expert Emily Post and an instructor with the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.

In some cases, a harried single parent has replaced the traditional family and there's little time to teach the basics of polite living, let alone how to hold a knife and fork, Post said.

A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70 percent questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people are more rude than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The trend is noticed in large and small places alike, although more urban people report bad manners, 74 percent, then do people in rural areas, 67 percent.

Peggy Newfield, founder and president of Personal Best, said the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s are now parents who don't stress the importance of manners.

A whopping 93 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll faulted parents for failing to teach their children well.

"Parents are very much to blame," said Newfield, whose Atlanta company started teaching etiquette to young people and now focuses on corporate employees. "And the media."

Sulking athletes and boorish celebrities grab the headlines while television and Hollywood often glorify crude behavior.

Nearly everyone has a story of the rude or the crude, but fewer are willing to fess up to boorish behavior themselves.

Only 13 percent in the poll would admit to making an obscene gesture while driving; only 8 percent said they had used their cell phones in a loud or annoying manner around others. But 37 percent in the survey of 1,001 adults questioned Aug. 22-23 said they had used a swear word in public.

Margaret Hahn-Dupont, a 39-year-old law professor from Oradell, N.J., noticed that some of her students showed little respect for authority and felt free to express their discontent and demand better grades.

"They got a lot of things and feel entitled to get a lot of things," said Hahn-Dupont.

[Last modified October 16, 2005, 01:33:15]