We are living in a disconnected world

The woman wasn’t exactly shouting. But she was loud. Halfway across a room buffered by soft music and full of people who were chatting and laughing and clinking coffee cups, you could hear her anger.

Her internet wasn’t working and she was sick of it, sick of having to log in every day and not getting in! Sick of beginning every morning of her vacation having to deal with this!

The employee to whom she was venting her anger — the source of which seemed well beyond her failed internet connection — could not be heard. Young? Old? Man? Woman? I don’t know. But after a short silence, the woman continued to rant: If I never log out, why do I have to log in?

Later that night, I watched a man march out of a restaurant because his table wasn’t ready. The older woman who had the unfortunate task of informing him that there would be a brief wait while his table was being cleared was his target. He glared at her as she spoke, pounded the lectern that separated them, then turned on his heels and stormed out the door. Ten seconds later, a waiter chased after him. A minute after this, the waiter returned with the customer and within seconds handed him a glass of chilled, white wine.

When did we start rewarding bad behavior? And when did bad behavior become so commonplace?

Yes, please. No, thank you. Pardon me. I’m sorry. Let me hold the door for you. I still hear these words. Sometimes. But I hear, more and more often, in tone, in attitude, and in action, anger and disrespect.

Why is this? Why does the whole world seem to be dialed up a notch, ranting and raving and yelling at one another? Is it the internet that has caused this? Or Donald Trump? Or the fact that we are all angry, who knows why, and that this anger is spilling out of us, not only in our homes and in our cars, but everywhere?

My husband likes to tell the story of how his father insisted that his children have good table manners at home, even at breakfast — no reaching across the table, no grabbing something to go, because, his father said, “If you do this at home, you’ll do this in public.” And so it was: Sit up straight. Bring the food to you. Don’t start to eat until everyone is served. No elbows on the table. Chew your food with your mouth closed.

And both my husband and his sister did.

The point is that behavior is learned. If we talk with food in our mouths at home, we will talk with food in our mouths in public. Same with how we talk. Our choice of words. Our tone. Our volume. Politeness is not innate. Respect is not innate. Listening and thinking before we speak is not innate. These things have to be practiced.

Back in the day, before we were all venting online, to comment about anything took thought and effort. For example: If a reader agreed with or objected to something written in a newspaper, this reader would write a letter to the editor. The letter would be read by a real human being whose job was reading letters. Hundreds of letters arrived at hundreds of newspapers every day in this country but at each paper, only a handful made it to print. A letter had to be vetted, the writer contacted, and facts checked before giving it voice. A letter had to be brief and thoughtful. And always respectful.

This is not the way conversations and readers’ comments work today online.

The internet is fueled by disrespect from people with usernames that make them anonymous. There’s name-calling and denigration, yelling at strangers, yelling in ALL CAPS. Online, it’s a schoolyard brawl, not a college debate.

All this meanness gets in our heads. We absorb the barbs, the pettiness, the hurtful words. They become part of us, part of our vocabulary: What do you mean my table isn’t ready?

I forget sometimes that the voice I hear on my phone when I finally reach a real human being, after pressing 1 for this and 2 for that, then waiting on hold for 30 minutes, is a flesh and blood human being on the clock, doing a job I’m glad I don’t have to do. I have to remind myself that it is not her fault that I’m frustrated. It’s a messed up system. But she is not to blame.

Technology benefits us in so many ways. It feeds us information. It connects us to the world.

But there’s a downside to everything and the downside of the internet and all the “press 1s and 2s” is the same as the downside of driving alone in our cars and wearing EarPods and living in places where we don’t know our neighbors and listening to news day and night instead of listening to one another. And the downside is this: All these miracles that are connecting us to the world and expanding our worlds, are also — quickly and surely —disconnecting us, physically, spiritually, and emotionally — from one another.