Are Gadgets Making Us Less Polite?

Does it bug you when someone is so wrapped up in a cellphone conversation he lets a door slam in your face? Or when a colleague answers emails on her PDA during a meeting? We wanted to know if Canadians think that technological devices—such as cellphones, PDAs and MP3 players—are making us less courteous to one another, so we asked them.

According to our survey, carried out by Léger Marketing in June,* 60 percent of Canadians felt advances in technology have made people less courteous over the past ten years. (A paltry two percent felt it’s made people more courteous, while the rest thought courtesy is about the same.)

Those numbers might not surprise you, but you might be interested to find out who was most bothered by “techno-boorishness”: Women were significantly more likely to feel technological progress has had a negative impact, as were people between the ages of 45 and 64, residents of Ontario, and anglophones. More than 60 percent of each of these groups felt their co-citizens are now less polite than they were just a decade ago.

Other highlights from the Reader’s Digest survey include the finding that most people thought seniors are the most courteous age group, and those under 18 the least. Most people felt that Atlantic Canadians are the most courteous in the land, but Quebecers need to work on their image: Their province was considered the least polite region, even though three quarters of francophones thought Quebecers are courteous.

We also put forward a number of scenarios and asked our respondents how each situation would make them feel and what they’d do if they found themselves in a similar scenario. Read the full article, “The Trouble With Technology,” and take the poll yourself.

* The survey of 1,510 people was conducted June 22 through 27. It has a maximum margin of error of +/– 2.6%, 19 times out of 20.

Join the Debate: Has technology had an impact on courtesy in Canada? How so?

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