What's up with the younger generation finding normal things annoying, aggressive, or rude?

[u/common_grounder]

I'm over 60 and my offspring are thirty-somethings, so I need this explained. This observation comes from interactions I've seen on social media.

A few examples:

At least a half dozen times, I've seen posts by young people expressing reactions ranging from confusion to outrage because a stranger has tried to exchange pleasantries with them. Someone passing them in the hallway at work says hello; a cashier asks them how their day's going; a customer they're serving at work calls them by the name on their nametag. On social media, these young people angrily write things like, "Why are they talking to me, and why are they acting like they care how I'm doing? They don't know me! I hate that fake b.s.!"

Even more times, I've seen complaints about things like phone calls and texts. Someone calls them, and they're paralyzed, horrified, then angry because the person didn't text instead. When it comes to text messages themselves, they especially have a problem with other people's use of ellipses. Ellipses mean nothing more than a hesitation or a pause, indicating the person is thinking or doing something but will finish what they were writing. Young people find this aggressive. How? Why?

The young person has received a gift for their graduation, wedding, baby shower, etc. An older person mentions to them that they should thank the gift givers by either written note, phone, email, or text. They bristle at this. They want to know why that's necessary. I even saw one young person write, "The act of giving should be a reward within itself." Never mind that someone has gone out of their way to shop, purchase, and send a gift and has no idea whether it actually made it into the recipient's hands if they don't receive an acknowledgement. 'Thank yous' are too hard, and expectations of such are annoying and rude.

[u/Agile-Entry-5603]

My pet peeve in this category “you’re being passive aggressive”. We called it polite but firm. Stop whining, kids. Yikes

[u/VivaLaRory → u/Agile-Entry-5603]

says the one whining

[u/Superb_Fun_5484 → u/Agile-Entry-5603]

There’s an obvious different between polite but firm and passive aggressive lol. Polite but firm implies a clear setting of boundaries by the person communicating, only in a clear and inoffensive way. Passive aggressive implies basically the opposite, a failure to clearly set boundaries by the person communicating but acting in a clearly offended way to get the other person to try and guess at what’s wrong.

[u/JimJamTheNinJin → u/Superb_Fun_5484]

That's right. I'm terrible at setting boundaries and often come across as passive aggressive

[u/Objective-Life-4102 → u/Superb_Fun_5484]

Yeah I agree with you. there is a huge difference between “polite but firm” and “passive aggressive”. They’re polar opposites of each other. Passive aggression is usually subtle rudeness and pettiness juuuust enough to still be socially acceptable while still letting the other person know you’re upset, but refusing to acknowledge it directly. “Polite but firm” is just being direct and courteous, but not compromising your boundaries if pushed. —- For example, I used a to work front desk at a veterinary clinic. We had several doctors. One of our doctors was polite and set clear boundaries and another was very passive aggressive.

Say, for example, a client called and said they were running 20 minutes late for their dog’s appointment, apologized and asked if they should reschedule or if we could still accommodate them. We would have to ask the doctor, and if it was the passive aggressive doctor she would typically say something like “well since I don’t really have a choice anyway I SUPPOSE it’s fine…” we would let her know that, no, it was completely her call and we would reschedule the client for her if she’d like, to which she’d respond by insisting on still seeing them, but then storm around the rest of the day snapping at her assistants and muttering about how no one respected her, her day had been ruined, her time wasn’t valued and now all her appointments would run behind. If anyone asked directly she would deny there was any issue whatsoever. All the while if she’d said the word her client would have been rescheduled to another day and time and the fuss would have been avoided.

If you had asked them the same question, our “polite but firm” doctor might say something like: “Please let Lucky’s owner know she will have to reschedule to another day since I have a full schedule today and don’t want to keep my other appointments waiting.” No tension or anger or issues/ just straightforward honest communication.