Online or offline. News keeps reporting about loneliness and disconnection, but in my experience it’s just that it’s harder to interact with people in a civil way because they are so hostile, angry, and arrogantly convinced their viewpoints and experiences are the only legitimate ones.
Not to mention the lack of civility towards servers and other service workers. I can’t recall if I was just indifferent 10 years ago, but on a almost daily basis it blows my mind how openly rude many people are to servers and such, which seemed like a much more rare thing when I was younger.
People have been assholes to service staff and service workers for decades. I did a lot of restaurant work in the early 90s (in College) and the shit that people did to wait staff back then was unreal. Did they do that before I observed it, I am sure.
With that said, social interactions really started to get beyond stupid since the wide spread adoption of Smart Phones and really ramped up after the pandemic.
I go out to restaurants and bars and everyone has their head buried in their phone. People also can’t stop looking at their fucking phones when driving, walking up stairs and in public are just completely oblivious to those around them.
The result of the obliviousness is, they saunter slowly up stairs, stupidly occupy too much space in aisle ways etc.
Its almost like this is a thing https://apnews.com/article/meta-verdict-appeal-social-media-addiction-f2fc62210b02f1945bfd416f5554dd5c