As old texting rules fall away, new ones bubble up to replace them…
By Tatum Hunter: Lizzie Post once sent a text message checking in on a friend with a new baby. The response came late — a full year later. Would her great-great-grandmother, the prolific writer and titan of American etiquette Emily Post, be horrified? The younger Post says she doesn’t think so.
“I feel like her personality would have been one where if you weren’t offended by the disconnection, then of course you would welcome the reconnection,” the younger Post said. “If the disconnection offended you, then either don’t respond or let someone know it was a problem. Either take ownership of it or let it go.”
During her career spanning the first half of the 20th century, Emily Post adjusted her etiquette advice to reflect a changing society, says the younger Post, who co-wrote the 19th and 20th editions of the book “Emily Post’s Etiquette.” And that approach may be the only hope we have to make sense of texting, which now props up much of our social and professional lives.
