Decline Of Manners

I was in the grocery store the other day and was watching the behavior of the shoppers. As you know I am a nut about cell phones because public abuse of them have driven me crazy. I saw the usual mindless shopper. One hand on the cell phone , one on the basket, loudly shouting his or her personal affairs in the store and rarely ever being considerate in allowing those who came to just shop to pass down the aisles or reach the goods needed in the shopping trip. I think about 30% of the shoppers were behaving badly with their phones that day.
But it wasn't just the phones that indicated we are in the age of rudeness. I saw people blocking others from passing while they pondered their selections, the me first and everyone else be damned attitude. Some were rudely reprimanding their small children for being...well...small children. They seemed to expect miniature adults from their 4 and 5 year olds. A couple of seedy looking moms even threatened ("I'm gonna knock you out", said one to her little boy) their children because they apparently had so few parenting skills or an inability to reason with their child, that they didn't know how to set a proper example.
I saw items from the freezer and refrigerator section tossed randomly among canned good items, a few items thrown on the floor by shoppers who knocked them down or simply tossed them down because "they were in their way". Few of them new there was a right of way when driving their shopping carts as the rule of the day seemed to be the German Blitzkrieg strategy of bulldozing down the aisle, oblivious to anything or anyone who dared impede their progress. Magazines on the magazine rack were tossed all abut in disarray. They shoppers read them and didn't bother to replace them to their designated spot, making finding a desired magazine a much harder chore for the other shoppers. There were empty shopping baskets left in the way by shoppers who decided they didn't need them anymore and were too lazy and inconsiderate to return them to where they picked them up and where they belonged.
When I checked out I had to wait for the cell phone addicts to chat instead of paying attention to the checker who tried in vain to tear the cell nut away from his or her "important" call. And as I left the store and wheeled my basket to my car I saw it was surrounded by abandoned shopping carts. The users didn't bother to return them to the designated return venues (and there were many that were conveniently located). It was more of the ME generation at work.
And not to indict just Americans, I have seen similar and even some worse behavior by shoppers in other countries. In short, public behavior today is rude. But do most others know or even understand the rudeness? I am not sure. Have we become so used to rudeness in public, in the media, in our private lives that rudeness is now a standard of behavior itself? I think so.
This is the generation that hasn't learned polite public behavior. The cell phone stupidity I complain about is just one reflection of that. They haven't learned at home how to behave properly in public. And what we don't know we tend to easily dismiss. Thus, few people are bothered by the rudeness that they must endure every day. Our society and others all all around the world have become casual to a fault.
Do you agree with this, or am I just being picky and out of touch? Hehe Of course if you ignore my question I will consider it an act of rudeness.
This is t