I agree with Gabe- social media and technology really are beginning to shift us away from traditional norms of social etiquette. Another example I can think of is the typical introduction. Growing up, I was taught that if I was speaking with one person and another joined the conversation or if I was having a conversation with multiple people that I knew, it was my job to introduce each of my friends to each other. For example, if I was at a party chatting with my best friend Alex and one of my co-workers came over to say hi, I was responsible for saying something like “Oh
Julie, good to see you! Alex, this is my co-worker Julie, and Julie, this is my friend Alex.” However, I’ve seen this tradition start to disappear… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been chatting with a person only to be interrupted by another one of their friends, and it is always SO awkward just standing there silently listening to them have a conversation while mine is on pause. On social media, people rarely make “introductions” anymore… we rely on lists of mutual friends, short bios, profile pics and usernames to display introductory material. Because everyone’s basic info is so readily available, we don’t really need to take the time for proper introductions online… And I think getting comfortable with this practice may be leading some of us to forget how important and helpful introductions are in the real world for facilitation conversation and keeping everyone involved!