This post originally appeared on The Worldwide Culture Gonzo Squad Inc.

pic nicked from here

A man yaks on the cell phone. Another ignores his dinner companion in favour of his blackberry. Yet another pulls out a digital camera and starts barking orders, only to shatter a friendship because of a tag on an ugly photograph. This is the modern world.

And, if you think it’s bad now, just wait until the Internet completely normalizes both pornography and exhibitionism. That’ll be an interesting subway ride.

But hope is not lost. Though it may seem that micro-gadgetry has rendered etiquette obsolete, it is simply forcing a new and better one to emerge. An etiquette less based upon long-dead social norms and more upon first principles. In today’s world, traditions are fashions and fashions are dead before becoming traditional. We must concern ourselves with style.

Above all, manners are based upon privacy. This is why one does not, when returning to the dinner table, announce what they have just performed in the toilet. Though we have always had the capacity to do so, we have deemed such behaviour indelicate. We keep some things to ourselves. Things that may hurt, disgust or cause discomfort to the people around us.

But the general thrust of technology is publicity. Without thinking too deeply about it, most of us have become multimedia, broadcasting empires. In the palm of our hand, we hold the ability to communicate through voice, image and text. We can share everything.

We always could share more than we should. Manners is, primarily, knowing the difference between what you can and what you should publicize.  Technology is an ability, not a licence.

Most of the people around you are strangers. They do not care to hear your business. Even in a public washroom, one closes the door when they defecate. Although we examine our own faeces before flushing and rejoice in its odour, we feel no compulsion to show it off. The same simple rule applies to the use of the telephone. I’m not saying that you talk a lot of shit but . . .

Well, you talk a lot of shit.

Texting is, of course, a quiet alternative and it would take a rare breed of stranger to take offence. It is the urinal of communications technology. An acceptable public tool but still not a social one. Should you ignore your friends who are physically present, you are pissing on shoes.

The principle here is less one of invading space –though it is that- than it is a hierarchy of scarcity. The person whose company was the most difficult to secure is always the most valuable. Should one travel miles through the snow by donkey to have dinner with your family, their comfort is more important than the man who lives in the basement.

Almost without exception, the person you are texting is expending less effort to speak to you than the person sitting across your table. By ignoring your actual guest, you send a clear message. Perhaps not the one you meant to and not to the person you intended to. You are saying: ‘Not only are you less important than the person I am texting but you –and all your effort combined– is less important.’ The offence magnifies.

These days, the people who bother to actually meet with you should be treated as the guest of honour. And because they are such a valued guest, you probably want to take their photograph. Although it steals our soul, we are getting used to it. Taking a picture is most likely fine.

What is not fine is channelling Stanley Kubrick. Just because you’re holding a camera does not make you a boss. No matter how big that camera may be. Shouting orders, telling people how and where to stand while doing a thousand takes is beyond annoying.

Models, extras and actors are talking props. The rest of us have better things to do.

Once you have gained their image/soul, you now have the ability to distribute it to your friends, their friends and all of the people who pass as friends on social networking sites. This requires a degree of sensitivity and common sense.

While it may have been quite amusing to see your friend insert a whiskey bottle into themselves, the picture may not seem so the next day. Chances are, they’re making a funny face. People are quite sensitive about their faces. What may look like a lovable wart to you, may be a source of lifelong neurosis to them. Adding a comment like: “Wart’s Up?” is just inviting trouble.

Furthermore, most people have a range of competing identities. Their friends at the bank might be unaware of what they do at the club. With the rare and awful exception of birthday parties, they never even want these groups of friends to meet. Such events are a minefield of opposing expectations that bring ones different personas into conflict.

Don’t be the bomb that blows their cover.

Violating your own privacy is usually ill-mannered but violating another person’s is also an assault upon their autonomy. As bad as it may be for you to leave the bathroom door open, it is worse yet to open it while someone else occupies the toilet. By accident or by purpose, it is rude. One should always knock first. The same applies to shared photographs.

These simple principles of etiquette may not change the behaviour of the people around you but their selective application will arm you with a sense of smug and baseless superiority. And that is, perhaps, the most important function of both manners and technology.