The Usual iWhipping Boy: No, "Tech-Driven Narcissism" Isn't What Makes Us Rude
Frances Terrell Lippman, in a letter to the editor about my recent LA Times op-ed, thinks so:

With more ways to talk about ourselves -- Twitter, Instagram, texting, Facebook, that old standby email and all the rest that will be coming along -- rudeness is inevitable.

People often blame technology -- and it feels comforting and right to do it, because we all have to duck around some asshole meandering down the sidewalk engrossed in his electronic binky (and all the other manifestations of those umbilicalized to their me-phone).

I explain in my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" (which the op-ed is a miniature of):

[On sources of blame for all the rampant rudeness] "It's the Internet; it alienates people." Oh, right--when it isn't functioning as the single most connective force in human history. And sorry, all you cell phone blamers, but iPhones don't leap out of people's pockets and purses, put themselves on speaker, and float around the grocery store barking into the ears of everybody shopping.

...Much of this surge in rudeness we're experiencing is a consequence of life in The New Wild West, the world that technology made. Technology itself doesn't cause the rudeness. But technological advances have led to sweeping social change, removing some of the consequences of being rude, especially in the past fifteen years, with so many people living states or continents apart from their families and friends, often spending their days in a swarm of strangers, and being both more and less connected than ever through cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.

And I write in the LA Times op-ed:

We're all experiencing more daily rudeness than ever, to the point where there seems to be a revised Golden Rule: "Do unto others ... whatever you think you can get away with." Pundits are quick to blame technology, too much parenting, too little parenting and the reality TV empire known as the Kardashians. But science tells another story: We have lost the constraints we had on our behavior for millions of years of human history. In short, we are rude because we are now living in societies too big for our brains.

I came to this idea via the finding by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar that there's a "magic" population limit -- approximately 150 people -- beyond which civility breaks down. In a society of 150 or fewer, where everyone knows everyone else (like the small bands in which we evolved), concern for reputation keeps people from acting out. But there's no need to worry about reputation when you are surrounded by strangers, as we so often are these days, and it's transformed our society into a free-for-all for the piggy and entitled.

We obviously can't turn the clock back to a world where everybody knows everybody and the blacksmith's mother. What we can do is use my "societies too big for our brains" concept to bring back some of the constraints and benefits of the small societies in which we evolved.

This starts with letting empathy -- "How would I feel if that were done to me?" -- be our behavioral guide, rather than whether we know the person we are about to do it to. We also need to start speaking up to the rude, which is something many people feel uncomfortable doing.

To get over this psychological hurdle, we need to recognize rudeness for what it is: A form of theft. A cell boor who privatizes shared space as his own is stealing your attention. The neighbor who blasts music at 2 a.m. is stealing your sleep. And ultimately, all rudeness is the theft of everybody's peace of mind because it makes our world into an ugly shove-or-be-shoved place.

By the way, most dismayingly, the shipping message on my book at Amazon says the book will ship in "1 to 3 weeks." This is a glitch in their system. The publisher just reprinted (for the fourth time!) and that was right after the third reprint, and my editor (who is the executive editor and has some mojo!) will straighten this out on Monday. (They can get books to Amazon in a day, in my past experience!) The book is in at Barnes and Noble and should ship right away. Please order a new copy, which helps support the author (me!), which allows the author to keep writing books and keep eating at tables instead of out of Dumpsters.