A blog post on the NYT web site (“Disruptions: Digital
Era Redefining Etiquette”) lists previously unproblematic behaviors which
should be considered rude circa 2013: sending an e-mail or text message which
just says “Thank you”; leaving a voicemail message instead of texting; asking
for a fact or directions that can be googled. Apparently, forcing a phone
conversation on someone can fall in this category, too, since the author brags
that he now communicates with his mother mostly on Twitter. I initially thought
the piece was a parody, but it isn’t.
To help prove his point, the author cites
the co-founder of a “comedic creative company” as saying: “I have decreasing
amounts of tolerance for unnecessary communication because it is a burden and a
cost.” That argument won me over in a millisecond. Indeed, who could be against
the pursuit of efficiency and cutting all sorts of unnecessary costs in that
most central of all areas – your personal life? And this is an argument whose
power can no longer be plausibly denied in any area of social or personal
existence.
Case in point – a new book by economist Marina Adshade introducing
cutting-edge research on the dynamics of the market for love. This is the
opening paragraph of the enthusiastic review cum promotional piece in the NYT (“In
the Quest for Love, Costs vs. Benefits”): “Is love for sale? Maybe not quite as directly as sex is, but
economists believe that the quest for a romantic partner obeys essentially the
same cost-benefit logic that governs every other market.” Case closed.
