Gemma Fox

Going about my daily life I've noticed more and more recently the absolute lack of manners that many people seem to have these days.

Has anyone else noticed this?

This may sound more like a rant but it's a genuine observation of people as they go about their day.

Simple things, like holding open a door, seem to have fallen by the wayside in younger generations. I've noted that doors only seem to be held open for me by men or women of an older generation.

It seems like there is now a culture of only looking out for yourself. If you observe people as they walk along a busy street they're not interested in looking or paying attention to any one else and this often results in people walking into each. Do they apologise to each other? Well, sometimes but often there are glares exchanged and they move on. Why not simply apologise? They don't want to because they don't want to be blamed for something and often an apology is seen as an admittance of blame.

I notice that people of an older generation give each other a lot of eye contact and not only that, they actually talk to each other too, stopping on the street to exchange pleasantries or moan about the weather. Either way, they're communicating.

I asked a woman over the age of 60 her thoughts on someone giving her a friendly smile in the street even if she didn't know them. She said it was just friendliness. I asked someone in their early 20's the same question and got the answer that they would find it weird if someone did that.

Surely it's just good manners to acknowledge another human being? Receiving a smile from someone I don't know actually makes me feel good. It also feels pretty good to smile at someone else and have them acknowledge that with a return smile.

Queueing is something else that seems to have suffered from lack of manners. I use public transport and nowadays many people seem to have forgotten how to queue up for a bus. What I notice is that when the bus pulls up to the stop people appear from everywhere and try to barge onto the bus ahead of people who have queueing politely, sometimes for a long while.

Last week I was on the bus and the man in front of me reached into his pocket to get out his iPod. In doing so he knocked a packet of pills from his pocket and they landed in the aisle of the bus. He didn't realise this but I did and so did several people who actually looked over at him and at the packet of pills.

From where I was sitting I couldn't tell what kind of pills they were, they may have just been paracetamol or they may have been for angina or a migraine, I don't know so neither did anyone else. They all looked and then went back to their own worlds.

I reached down, picked up the pills and tapped the guy on the shoulder, handed him the pills and he thanked me. He then put them in his pocket, turned round and thanked me again, which made me think they were more than simple painkillers.

So why was I the only person to do this? What has happened to basic manners and just simply looking out for and acknowledging our fellow humans?