My mother had no issues calling someone but her parents were upset when she started listening to that damn rock and roll. The youth thing inhibits way too much authentic music. People are just scared to listen to the oldies. /s

Différent generations have different norms and it’s not right or wrong.

While I didn’t understand the analogy, I will happily admit that, yes, I’m making the case that some norms are better and some are worse.

a few generations ago, there was a moral panic that the kids weren’t all right because rock and roll music was corrupting. It was loud, vulgar, etc and therefore wrong.

My point was to emphasize how across generations, everyone seems to think that the youth have bad norms and it’s somehow wrong, and then they grow up and the world keeps spinning, and the cycle repeats.

It’s awfully vain to think that the norms of your generation in your nation at your point in time are magically the ”better” ones.

The parent comment reference a novel idea that phone calls could have a subject line. It’s novel, it’s clever, it would solve many problems beyond just “people are scared to be human”. The world moves on, and we can improve it or we can launch ad hominem attacks on the next generation.

>Différent generations have different norms

Yes.

> and it’s not right or wrong.

No.

This sort of relativism of all norms, mores, morals, and ethics needs to stop. There are some cultural and social norms/mores that are better than others. We know this, because empirically some produce better outcomes than others. Mass-scale social anxiety at having to interact with another human being is NOT healthy for society, and is likely the underlying cause for a significant amount of the current social ills that are either new or increasing over time.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess 17 year olds who can’t call people aren’t the reason for societies problems. Certainly less to blame than the 45yo’s who bemoan them.

Every generation thought that society was collapsing. Despite that, time progresses, people age out of the population and a new generation is born. And society (mostly) doesn’t collapse.

Those 17 year olds grow up into adults with the same unaddressed anxieties.

When I was 17 I spent like an hour emailing a teacher telling her I’d be late on an assignment by a day. Because I was very anxious about writing an email to a “superior” and didn’t know how it’d go, or what the “right” email looked like.

Now I email hundreds of times a day, and have constantly shifted deadlines to no professional detriment. I still get nervous emailing a new important person, but you do it anyways.

Do people really forget what it’s like being young? Sometimes you just grow up and move on.

also it's very easy to curate a public image of beeing busy if you complain about interruptions because everybody can relate to the feeling.

I don't have a problem with phone calls but if someone unexpected engages with me on the street or in a hallway I kind of freeze for long enough that we have walked past each other and then realize that was a bit rude but its too late now.

> if I don’t respond to your email in a day, treat it like a phone call and just try again. Don’t assume I’m ignoring you.

I mean... aren't you ignoring them? It's an email. Where'd the first one go that the second one is going to be any different?

I miss a very high percentage of legitimate email messages from people because I don't receive many of them (half a dozen per year?) and get like 20-30 spam and mistyped-address emails per day (that's after the spam filters), so I don't pay much attention to it unless I'm expecting something.

Humans I know contact me through whatsapp. Or if they're old (and hell, I'm almost 40, so I mean old) through text or phone. Strangers' only real hope is text. I'll probably miss anything else. And even that is getting so goddamn spammy now that it's not far from being like email: only useful if I'm already expecting a message. I receive stupid political ads for states I've never lived in a couple times a day.

I read your email, got interrupted, and did not reply. Then I forgot about it.

If you email me again, it might get read at a more convenient time, and I'll answer.

Same reason I might not answer your call: I'm busy with something else or not near my phone at the moment. This used to be normal by the way -- if I called your home phone and nobody answered, I'd have no choice but to call again later.

It isn’t visually present in the list of 50-100 emails in my inbox. Mail again and remind. It’s not rude. It’s rude to assume the other person is ignoring.