SINGAPORE: Have you ever received a text or email that left you feeling offended?rich9

You are not alone. Complaints about rudeness are aplenty - be they about passive-aggressive WhatsApp messages, impatient drivers on the road, inconsiderate behaviours on public transport, or diners unhappy with hawkers.

Social media is flooded with grievances about declining manners and a growing insensitivity to others.

Is society genuinely becoming ruder?

A recent experience made me reconsider this. I received an e-mail from a student that seemed rude and antagonistic. When we met in person, she was polite and respectful - nothing at all like the persona I imagined from her e-mails.

This got me wondering: Are we losing our ability to communicate respectfully in our increasingly digitised world?

At the heart of this issue is the concept of communicative rituals - the words, gestures, and social cues we use often go beyond their literal meanings.

The philosopher, Li Chenyang, describes communicative rituals as a kind of “cultural grammar” that enables us to effectively interpret the meaning behind certain gestures and words.

Misunderstandings arise when people from different cultures, generations, or social groups interact without sharing the same cultural grammar.

“How are you?” can be used as a sincere question about one’s well-being in some cultures, and as a casual greeting in others. I was puzzled by my first visit to Australia as a teenager when people asked, “How are you?”, but walked away before I could complete my sentence.

When people are unaware of such differences in cultural grammars, it is easy to perceive unexpected behaviours as rude.

We may also unintentionally inflict rudeness on others by simply being unaware of the appropriate communicative rituals to express ourselves well in different settings.

These misunderstandings are not new, but they are made worse by the rise of digital communications.

Algorithms curate our online experiences, surrounding us with like-minded individuals, typically of similar age groups or cultural backgrounds. This limits our exposure to a diversity of communicative practices, making us less sensitive to how others might interpret the same words or gestures differently.

Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, and even Gen Alpha have each developed their own communicative rituals - often unbeknownst to one another.

Are you aware of how different generations communicate?

Here’s a simple test: Is there a difference between replying “Ok” (without a full stop) versus “Ok.” (with a full stop)?

Older generations typically use “Ok.” (with a full stop), viewing the effort to use proper punctuation as a sign of respect.

Younger generations, on the other hand, tend to perceive “Ok.” (with a full stop) as passive-aggression - the sender is upset enough to go through the hassle of adding that final punctuation.

I learnt that I had accidentally made students anxious just by replying “Ok.” to their requests - they thought I was upset with them.

If this surprises you, you might be in a communicative bubble.

Communicative bubbles make us less aware of the communicative rituals of others - the differences can be so subtle they go unnoticed - leading us to misinterpret their behaviourrich9, or unintentionally act in ways that lead to misunderstandings, both online and offline.

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