By Soni Brinsko
March 18, 2025

Five years ago, Americans were told to stay home, maintain six feet of distance from others, and limit social gatherings as COVID-19 swept across the nation. Now, half a decade after those unprecedented social restrictions began, a recent Pew Research Center study reveals that nearly half of Americans (47%) believe people have grown ruder since the pandemic, with one-third reporting they regularly witness rude behavior in their daily lives.

The study suggests a fundamental restructuring of social norms after an unprecedented period of isolation. Essentially, the pandemic created a massive, involuntary social experiment in which communal behaviors were disrupted and then reformed under stress.

For Dr. Michael Briscoe, Assistant Professor in CSU Pueblo’s Department of Sociology, Criminology, and Anthropology, these findings reflect deeper shifts in how we relate to one another.

“Many social norms are informal – we learn them through observation rather than by being told explicitly what is rude or not rude. When we stop interacting with other people we stop learning these norms. I saw this in my classes as students in the years immediately following the pandemic were quieter, not even speaking to their classmates during breaks,” explained Dr. Briscoe, whose research focuses on relationships among society, the environment, and animals.

Pandemic Accelerated Digital Disconnect

Dr. Richard Walker, Interim Chair of Psychology at CSU Pueblo, argues that while the pandemic intensified these social changes, they were already well underway.

“I would submit to you that the pandemic only exaggerated a trend that was already well underway,” Dr. Walker explained in a recent interview. “And it began with, I think, the mass digitization of our society. We now live with multiple layers of passwords and internet security between each one of us. And talking to someone like we are face-to-face now is increasingly harder and harder to do.”

Dr. Walker points to everyday interactions that have become unnecessarily complex due to technology.

“Even places like going to McDonald’s is now incredibly hard to do because the first thing that prompt you is ‘do you have an app?’ This is a person I’m looking at, right? I’m ordering a sandwich. They’re right there. The sandwich is five feet behind them. ‘Do you have an app?’ I don’t need an app. You are here. I am here. The sandwich is here.”

Walker cites technology commentator Nicholas Carr, whose book “The Shallows” argues that the internet’s constant stream of information is negatively impacting our ability to focus, think deeply, and engage in sustained contemplation—essentially “shallowing” our brains. Carr posits that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic, and the internet’s ethic emphasizes speed, efficiency, and optimized production and consumption, which reshapes our cognitive habits.

According to Carr, the internet’s constant stream of information is not only changing how we think but how we interact with others. As technology increasingly mediates our communications, we lose crucial interpersonal skills—a phenomenon Dr. Walker has observed firsthand in his classroom.

Dr. Walker describes a particularly troubling example of how digital communication has eroded basic interpersonal skills among students:

Digital Habits Reshaping Physical Interactions

“Students here and around the country, they don’t know how to negotiate a simple conversation,” he recounts. “I asked one last semester and I said, walk over to your group. Look to see how they’re entering the data, and then you’ll know how to enter your data. Now, that’s a really simple thing. The person is five feet away, 10 feet away, right? Here’s group member number one, here’s group member number two, and they can see each other. They can probably smell each other.”

Instead of following this straightforward instruction, Walker explains, the student texted their classmate, creating confusion that could have been avoided through direct communication.

” And I don’t raise my voice. I’m a calm guy. And I said, ‘get up. Walk over there. Talk to them right now.’ I was the worst version of myself as a professor. Why was that? Because the lines of communication that we’ve created are atrophying our ability to interact with each other.”

Ian Ortiz, a sophomore health science major who works at the Foundation Office front desk, has observed similar patterns in how digital habits have reshaped in-person communication.

“I see hundreds of people coming through our office each week, and there’s definitely been a shift in how people interact,” said Ortiz, who plans to pursue a physician’s assistant program after graduation. “Many students walk up to the desk while still on their phones or wearing earbuds, and they’ll try to have a conversation without fully disconnecting from their devices.”

Ortiz notes that these behaviors aren’t necessarily intended to be disrespectful. “It’s just become normal for my generation to multitask our attention this way. But I’ve learned from working at the desk that older visitors or staff sometimes interpret this very differently—as dismissive or rude.”

He might have a point.

Dr. Briscoe points to the Pew findings, which reveal dramatic age disparities in what’s considered acceptable. For instance, 89% of adults over 65 find public cursing unacceptable, compared to just 38% of adults under 30.

“We are socialized into norms about what is polite and what is rude from a very young age, and so as society drifts further and further from those norms we see it as becoming ruder. In the case of this study, most of these norms are folkways rather than mores, or in other words norms based on societal tradition rather than on morals. There is nothing immoral about wearing earbuds while talking to someone or bringing a pet into a grocery store, though we may still have strong feelings about it,” Dr. Briscoe said.

Conflicting Campus Experiences

The effects of these social shifts are visible across CSU Pueblo’s campus, though experiences vary significantly. Melissa Santoyo, who has worked as a cashier at the university cafeteria for 10 years, has observed improved behavior in her workplace but deteriorating conduct elsewhere.

“They’re (people) more patient and more understanding of how when things are up here,” Santoyo said, referring to students’ reactions to cafeteria changes. “We had to get rid of the plastic bags, but I think it’s gotten a little bit better, but not a whole lot.”

However, Santoyo’s experiences outside campus tell a different story.

“You see people just get really angry, really impatient, honking at you all the time, looking at you, cursing you out, even if you’re following the rules,” she explained. “I don’t know if that has to do anything with the pandemic, but it might.”

Dr. Briscoe suggests these contrasting observations reflect how different environments either mitigate or amplify post-pandemic tension.

For structured spaces like the cafeteria, there are clear expectations and community norms and often show more resilience to broader social trends. It’s in less structured environments—roads, public transportation, retail spaces—where people say they are seeing more pronounced breakdowns in shared understandings of polite behavior. Or, it may seem like this due to nostalgia.

“People tend to romanticize the past – to see it through rose-tinted glasses, especially when it comes to society more broadly, said Dr. Briscoe.

According to scholar Michael R. Hagerty’s analysis of 71 studies, people often perceive social decline despite evidence to the contrary. For instance, individuals typically rated their happiness higher than five years prior, most believed general life quality had deteriorated for others during that same period.

Polarization of Perspectives

The contrast between Santoyo’s positive experiences in the cafeteria and her observations of increased road rage suggests that intentional community spaces—like university campuses—may provide models for navigating changing social norms with greater understanding.

What we’re experiencing isn’t necessarily a decline in politeness,” but rather a period of renegotiation about what politeness means in a digital age. The question isn’t whether we’re ruder than before the pandemic, but how we can develop shared understandings that accommodate both traditional and emerging ways of showing respect.

Dr. Walker offers a final reflection that suggests none of us are immune to these changes in social behavior:

“It’s not just affecting the other people. It’s affecting me too. I’m right there. I’m with everybody else. I’m rude too,” he admits, highlighting how even those who study and think deeply about civility can find themselves caught in the very patterns they critique.