Technology has made selfishness easier, but basic respect remains the bottom line of society; new etiquette is about restoring our awareness of other people's real existence.

Etiquette is not an old-fashioned relic; it reminds you that other people are living, breathing humans with their own inner lives, not your material or backdrop. Technology makes it too easy to be selfish—treating friends as an audience, turning strangers into content, and taking private moments as evidence.

The new etiquette is simple, with three main threads:

1. Attention: Don't make people compete with machines for you

Write letters to your loved ones in your own words, not with AI ghostwriting. Awkward truth beats perfect fake. Take off your earphones before ordering coffee so the person knows they're seen. Don't dump a 7-minute voice message on someone; that's just shifting your burden onto them. In group chats, ask before adding people, and not replying to a read message isn't a crime.

2. Privacy: Don't turn other people's lives into your content

Don't use devices with hidden cameras. Other people's children, screenshots of group chats, and strangers' breakdowns are not your content. Be honest about whether you used AI. Point your surveillance at your own yard, not your neighbor's.

3. Public life: Don't be a digital mob

Don't block the way, don't join in online pile-ons, and verify the source before forwarding. Do small kindnesses: return the shopping cart, give up your seat, let people off before you get on. Don't announce others' private matters, don't use AI to respond to someone's sincerity, allow others to grow, and remember that behind every post is a body that can feel pain.

In one line: other people are not tools for your use; they live for themselves.