I've had so many conversations on this topic over the past few years, and you've covered it here in such a brilliant way Alanna. I know it's not "real" but I feel so uncomfortable when people tell Siri/Alexa/Google to shut up because that line separating an AI voice will eventually blur and before you know it, you're rudely cutting your loved ones off because they've talked for too long. Loved this piece.
Absolutely! And I imagine that young children find it harder to know the difference—why be polite and courteous to real people if no one bothers at home?
I'm guilty of yelling "google, shut up" a few times after my Google home just randomly starts a long tirade when it was never asked anything in the first place. But I feel bad about it after 😅.
On the cultural aspect it's super interesting to hear about your experience with the Dutch as a British person. I'm French, living in the Netherlands and working quite a lot with British colleagues and I find it more difficult to work with British politeness than Dutch directness. The main thing for me is that I never know if my British colleagues or customers are satisfied. They will say thank you and be nice but then i find out that they are actually not happy 😂. With the Dutch I know what I'm hearing is exactly what they mean.
Yesssss, we Brits can be so insincere under the guise of being polite 😂 like it’s such a British thing to open the door for someone, and if they don’t say thank you, mutter “you’re welcome” but reeeeally quietly because we don’t confront people hahah.
When I first moved to Paris (lived there for a bit in my twenties) it took me a while to get used to some of the directness, but in the end I loved it. If I shop was closed, they’d just shout “WE’RE CLOSED”, no apology, no squirming etc. If it was in the UK, it would be all “Sooo sorry…” 😂
Haha it's so funny because I never thought of Parisian as direct but compared to British culture it's definitely the case. I still think people can be just rude in Paris too which is a feeling almost everyone who comes from non paris France seems to share 😂. At least in the UK, I'm almost sure I'll get nice service in almost any business.
Oh yes this. See also: people watching/listening to stuff without headphones, not waiting for people to get off the tube before getting on. There’s this whole self centredness and also a sense of ‘if others aren’t upholding these rules, then why would I continue to do so?’ Adding further to the slippery slope
YES!! The music thing baffles me. I was on the most idyllic country walk the other day and a group of people were absolute blasting music out of a speaker 😂 Like…thanks for that. Love hearing your music when I could be listening to the birds
I read an article that tried to distil modern manners into a list form. I will try and find it. I think that we live in complicated times, but there are things that I do that should be the norm. I take out headphones at the checkout of a store, I don't take my phone out during mealtimes and I make sure it is on silent all day.
I've had so many conversations on this topic over the past few years, and you've covered it here in such a brilliant way Alanna. I know it's not "real" but I feel so uncomfortable when people tell Siri/Alexa/Google to shut up because that line separating an AI voice will eventually blur and before you know it, you're rudely cutting your loved ones off because they've talked for too long. Loved this piece.
Absolutely! And I imagine that young children find it harder to know the difference—why be polite and courteous to real people if no one bothers at home?
Thank you 💓💓💓
I'm guilty of yelling "google, shut up" a few times after my Google home just randomly starts a long tirade when it was never asked anything in the first place. But I feel bad about it after 😅.
On the cultural aspect it's super interesting to hear about your experience with the Dutch as a British person. I'm French, living in the Netherlands and working quite a lot with British colleagues and I find it more difficult to work with British politeness than Dutch directness. The main thing for me is that I never know if my British colleagues or customers are satisfied. They will say thank you and be nice but then i find out that they are actually not happy 😂. With the Dutch I know what I'm hearing is exactly what they mean.
Yesssss, we Brits can be so insincere under the guise of being polite 😂 like it’s such a British thing to open the door for someone, and if they don’t say thank you, mutter “you’re welcome” but reeeeally quietly because we don’t confront people hahah.
When I first moved to Paris (lived there for a bit in my twenties) it took me a while to get used to some of the directness, but in the end I loved it. If I shop was closed, they’d just shout “WE’RE CLOSED”, no apology, no squirming etc. If it was in the UK, it would be all “Sooo sorry…” 😂
Haha it's so funny because I never thought of Parisian as direct but compared to British culture it's definitely the case. I still think people can be just rude in Paris too which is a feeling almost everyone who comes from non paris France seems to share 😂. At least in the UK, I'm almost sure I'll get nice service in almost any business.
Oh yes this. See also: people watching/listening to stuff without headphones, not waiting for people to get off the tube before getting on. There’s this whole self centredness and also a sense of ‘if others aren’t upholding these rules, then why would I continue to do so?’ Adding further to the slippery slope
YES!! The music thing baffles me. I was on the most idyllic country walk the other day and a group of people were absolute blasting music out of a speaker 😂 Like…thanks for that. Love hearing your music when I could be listening to the birds
I read an article that tried to distil modern manners into a list form. I will try and find it. I think that we live in complicated times, but there are things that I do that should be the norm. I take out headphones at the checkout of a store, I don't take my phone out during mealtimes and I make sure it is on silent all day.
Good piece BTW!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/21/the-new-etiquette-56-ways-to-do-the-right-thing