Subject:
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proof of what many have known for some time...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Thu, 4 Apr 2002 12:29:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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478 times
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At the risk of being flamed...
and it is Americans who said it too :)
[Link given below...probably only active for another day or so though.]
Survey finds Americans getting ruder
Source: AAP
People in the United States say Americans are rude.
They walk around bleating into cell phones as if they're the only person for
blocks. They curse often, their kids think the world is their personal
playground and they drive like maniacs.
That's what respondents to a national survey had to say about America's manners.
A full 79 per cent of the 2,013 adults surveyed by telephone in January by
research group Public Agenda said a lack of respect and courtesy in American
society was a serious problem. Sixty-one per cent believe things have got
worse in recent years.
"You really do see the majority of Americans pretty anxious about these
issues," said Jean Johnson, director of programs at Public Agenda, a New
York-based non-profit organisation. "People do think this is an area of the
society that they would like to see some improvement on."
Poor customer service has become so rampant that nearly half of those
surveyed said they had walked out of a store in the past year because of it.
Half said they often saw people talking on cellular telephones in a loud or
annoying manner. And six drivers in 10 said they regularly saw other people
driving aggressively or recklessly.
Many people admitted to rude behaviour themselves. More than a third said
they used foul language in public. About the same percentage confessed to
occasional bad driving.
However, at least half of those surveyed said they thought things got better
when it came to the treatment of blacks, the physically handicapped and gays.
The results were remarkably consistent geographically, with little
difference in rudeness awareness between the heartland and the coasts.
Opinion on only one issue - the use of foul language - split significantly
among regions of the country.
While three out of four Southerners said it was always wrong to take God's
name in vain, half of those surveyed from the Northeast said there was
nothing wrong with it or that it fell somewhere between right and wrong.
The survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus two percentage
points.
The researchers followed up their telephone survey with focus groups held in
Cleveland; Fort Lauderdale, Florida.; St. Louis; Frisco, Texas; Danbury,
Connecticut; Fort Lee, New Jersey; and Berkeley, California.
In those discussions, some people blamed overcrowding in malls, stadiums and
other public places. Others said Americans' increasingly busy lives were
making them ruder. And one woman in Texas blamed The King.
"It was shocking when Elvis was shaking his hips up there, but now we see
whole naked bodies," she said. "It started with Elvis, and that was a little
overboard, but that was the beginning of what we have today."
Harvard University professor Robert D Putnam said the rudeness epidemic was
a symptom of growing social isolation.
In his 1999 book "Bowling Alone," Putnam argued that television,
automobiles, suburbanisation and other forces had led to the decline of
community organisations that once held Americans together.
"That's causally linked to all sorts of other bad things, like schools not
working as well," Putnam said. "Lots of things are connected to this
collapse of social connectedness."
People surveyed by Public Agenda had few solutions.
Thirty-six per cent said when confronted with rude behaviour, the right
thing was to respond with excessive politeness.
Twenty per cent said it was best to point out the bad behaviour. But 42 per
cent said the best thing to do was just walk away.
Brought to you by ..... ©AAP 2002
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