Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, August 15, 2025

Last month, I was in an airport with my kids on our way to a last summer fling. We sat down in the only empty row by our gate. Across from us was a woman wearing a hat which read, “anti-social dog mom.” She had a small dog in a carry-on dog carrier on the seat next to her. She was carrying on a loud video call: no headphones.

I gave subtle social cues: looking, squirming, clearing my throat, theatrically putting in my own AirPods. I’m not sure she ever glanced up. The five of us got up to go to sit at a different gate.

I’ve noticed more of that these days. We’ve made headphones more easy, air-y and effective than ever before and people have stopped using them in public places.

Here’s another story from a leafy Dallas neighborhood just down the road from my home. Like many neighborhoods, teardowns and new builds are cropping up everywhere. But the back of this particular house towers over the surrounding homes with massive windows that overlook the neighbors’ yards. It ruins six decades of privacy on the street. This was a design choice that could have been mitigated.

It’s their right of course; their property; their needs and wants, I get all of that. But it’s my sense that there used to be more consideration of others and impulse control.

There’s a word for this: conscientiousness. And it’s in freefall, according to a recent review of the USC Understanding America Study by Financial Times journalist John Burn-Murdoch. . . “