Have we stopped noticing each other?
Give A Fuck: Today, I walked into my local bakery where a sign sitting beside the ordering counter caught my attention.
At first glance, seeing the universal image of a mobile phone inside a circle with a slash through it, I assumed it was going to say you could not pay by phone. However, in my terrible Dutch, I could roughly translated it to read:
“When ordering, please do not be on your phone.”
And honestly, I just stood there for a second laughing to myself. Because the fact a bakery now needs to remind people to stop scrolling long enough to order bread, well, it probably says quite a lot about the times we are living in.
Yet at the same time, I felt that ping of sadness. Another tiny example of how fragmented our attention has become. How difficult it is becoming to fully be present in even the smallest everyday interactions.
Typically, this got me thinking. And I wonder…
Have we stopped noticing each other?
Modern Service
No surprises when I say we are living in an increasingly individualist society and attention deprived world.
Sure, it has been brewing for some time. Yet it feels like it has accelerated at light speed over the past couple of years.
This last week, I have noticed numerous situations where people’s interaction is becoming increasingly unsettling.
I was walking to the gym the other morning with my house mate, when he pointed out a shop he had recently visited to look into buying a scooter. He was saying how ridiculous it was that he waited in the empty store for over 10 minutes, surrounded by staff members simply ignoring him, doing their own thing, before he gave up and left.
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Welcome to modern service.” I said jokingly. “It can feel like people just don’t give a fuck anymore.”
But as we walked, my house mate said, “I just don’t get it. It’s consistent. It’s everywhere. I don’t know how to reconcile with it.”
We talked about how, for foreigners, Dutch service can feel somewhat absent and cold at times. But he felt this was something more than a cultural difference. He wondered whether it was also a generation thing. It is, after all, particularly noticeable in a younger generation coming of age.
But his next comment is one I hear so often:
“I can’t even imagine what the future will look like.”
This launched me into a whole blurb about resilience. But I’ll come back to that a little later.
On arrival at the gym, our discussion was only highlighted more.
Visually, everything had that perfect gym polished look. Behind the counter stood someone who could easily have been the poster boy for what most of us imagine we might become if we actually stuck to the programme.
Yet after finally getting his attention, we could barely get two words out of him.
It was as painful as pulling teeth.
And even then, other customers were coming to the counter demanding his attention and off he would go, mid sentence. Or maybe I should say, mid some words. Only to return to start the awkward conversation time and again.
It was like déjà vu from just a few days earlier, speaking to yet another model perfect representative who was pushing us back to emailing head office the information they wanted for our membership, rather than entering it there and then. Pointing to QR codes and apps for support, induction to the gym, and workout programmes rather than providing any human to human service.
Yet this disconnect didn’t end there.
Performance over substance
In the Netherlands, there is a really nice social etiquette of saying “good morning,” “good afternoon,” or “good evening” when you walk into a room of strangers. Particularly in waiting rooms for the doctor or dentist.
And it is good manners to respond.
In the locker room, as I was changing into my gear, an older gentleman walked in, head down and somewhat muffled, “Goedemorgen”.
I looked up and responded like I was on auto pilot, and I noticed some other guys looked up too. A few of them attempted a “Goedemorgen” back, half under their breath. The rest made some half headed nod, or some forced grunted noise.
I couldn’t help thinking, why bother?
The man’s effort was greeted by about as much enthusiasm and sincerity as he put into giving the greeting.
It all just felt like performance.
And the morning events made me question: does anyone actually give a fuck anymore?
We are so caught up in our own world, our own dramas, our own distractions, we literally don’t see our own behaviour.
At times it feels people don’t seem to care if you are being served, if you were in line first, if you are dealing with your own dramas, or if their behaviour impacts anyone else.
And increasingly, warmth, friendliness, care and acknowledgement can feel less heartfelt, and more like behaviours we perform because we have learnt they are expected of us.
But do we really not give a fuck?
As easy as it might be for me to write this question off by answering yes, I am not sure that is the whole story. Of course there is more complexity. No matter how much I would love a simple answer for change.
There is something deeper going on.
I know I am not the only person who feels it. Something definitely feels different in the way we are relating to each other.
This partial attention, emotional flatness and physically being present, but not ever fully there.
Like the gym worker. I watched as he seemed unable to stay focused on one interaction because everyone was competing for his attention simultaneously.
And maybe that is the point.
The problem may not simply be that people have stopped giving a fuck.
I wonder if the problem is that giving a fuck is being buried under exhaustion, distraction, pressure, convenience, and systems that constantly train us back toward ourselves.
And maybe the reality is that we are losing the everyday conditions that allow care to show up.
Fuck! Then what?
This is where my thought process spiked. Recently I have been facing challenges trying to bring people together in social cohesion within my community.
So I can’t help but question: what happens to resilience, solidarity, and community preparedness when people stop noticing each other?
And this takes me back to the conversation with my housemate as he could not imagine what the future holds.
I tried to explain that if things get worse, and let’s be honest, it is very likely they will, resilience will not only come from emergency plans, government booklets, apps, alerts, supplies, or official systems.
It will also, just as importantly, if not more, come from people noticing each other.
Given the state of the world, it has never been more important that our focus is on resilience. And resilience comes from community building.
When neighbours check in on each other. When strangers pay attention. When someone remembers the elderly person upstairs. When someone asks who needs help. When someone notices who did not show up. When someone has enough social trust with the people around them to knock on a door without it feeling strange. The list goes on...
Yet how do we prepare for that kind of resilience when everyday interaction already feels so thin?
I’m struggling with how we build community preparedness in a culture where people increasingly struggle to even stay present at a counter, in a queue, in a locker room, or in a basic conversation.
Shrinking attention
There is definitely an argument that our collective attention habits have changed dramatically through constant stimulation and convenience.
Modern platforms are engineered around interruption, novelty, emotional reaction, and speed. Phones compete for attention all day long. Work increasingly fragments concentration. Life feels like it is constantly asking us to respond, react, scroll, decide, buy, click, answer, perform, produce.
A great example of this is these very READ articles I write.
A 10 minute article is now considered long form content.
People often complain to me that my articles are too long. Or they only find time to read the introduction.
Thinking back to when I was growing up, long form was a novel, an in depth multipage article, or a long running investigation into a subject matter.
I know many people are exhausted before they even sit down to read. I often suffer the same. So when we struggle to focus on a 10 minute article, it is not because we are lazy or incapable of depth.
But culturally, expectations have shifted.
Audiences now often expect immediate payoff, visual stimulation, shorter sentences, faster pacing, emotional hooks early, and summaries before substance.
And yes, compared to previous decades, a 10 minute read being framed as a major commitment does say something about how normalised constant entertainment has become.
NOTE: Organisations such as The Center for Humane Technology have spent years warning about how digital systems increasingly compete for human attention, behaviour, and emotional response.
Can we still give a fuck?
I was thinking about how we are becoming socially undernourished while simultaneously craving community more than ever.
And what made me laugh writing this now is that this is the strange irony of it all.
So many people I’m speaking with crave depth, complain about superficiality, miss meaningful conversation, want nuanced understanding, and long for a stronger sense of belonging.
Yet at the same time, many of us are finding it harder to stay with things long enough to reach that depth.
What a vicious cycle.
And I include myself in this. I’m certainly not above it all.
I really do feel it too.
The impatience. The distraction. The awareness of my shrinking attention span. And often waking up with exhaustion before the day has even really begun.
And more and more, I notice I also feel the loss.
The loss of small social gestures that actually mean something. The loss of warmth in ordinary exchanges. The loss of people noticing when someone else is being pushed aside. The loss of basic social patience.
And maybe that is why the phrase “give a fuck” keeps sitting with me.
Because it sounds crude. It sounds frustrated. It sounds like a rant. And honestly, the first draft of this article was a rant. But I believe underneath it is a much more serious question.
Can we still give enough of a fuck to notice each other?
And I mean in the tiny everyday ways that make society feel human.
Honestly, the more I reflect on it, the more it feels like the same thread I keep accidentally stumbling into. Culture of Peace. The Small Fence. When Dehumanising Becomes Normal.
Different stories.
Yet all somehow circling the same unease around care, attention, and humanity.
Practising to give a fuck
I think small practices of giving a fuck really come at no expense. The tough part is becoming aware of when we come across as if we don’t.
It can be as simple as looking up.
Waiting your turn.
Saying good morning like you mean it.
Letting someone finish their sentence.
Noticing who is in front of you.
Remembering that other people are also carrying invisible things.
I don’t think giving a fuck begins with saving the world.
But it begins with noticing who is standing right in front of us.
FAQ's - Give A Fuck
What is “Give a Fuck” about?
This article explores the growing feeling that modern life is becoming emotionally fragmented, attention deprived, and increasingly disconnected. Through everyday observations, it reflects on how overstimulation, technology, and individualism may be changing the way we relate to one another.
How does this connect to community resilience?
The article argues that resilience is not only built through systems, emergency plans, or institutions, but through social trust, attention, and communities that genuinely notice and support one another.
Is this article criticising technology?
Not entirely. The article recognises that technology, convenience, and modern systems shape our behaviour and attention in powerful ways, but it also reflects on the deeper emotional and social conditions influencing how we interact.
Why does the article focus on small social interactions?
Small everyday interactions often reveal broader social patterns. The article suggests that gestures like greeting strangers, listening fully, or noticing others may play a larger role in maintaining human connection than we realise.
This article was written by Gregg Hone. The words, structure, reflections, experiences and opinions expressed are deeply personal. AI was used to generate the FAQ section, and for technical SEO page construction.
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