[amanfredi]

Twitter, texting, cell phones, etc. don't cause rudeness, they just make it more obvious.

[Eliezer]

That's a good line, but I bet it's factually false.

[zackattack]

That's a good line, but would you care to suggest why?

[hugh3]

Rudeness requires both a rude person and an opportunity for them to be rude. Heck, even relatively polite people will be rude if put in the right situation.

[anatoly]

Because when Britain switched from coal gas to natural gas (low in carbon monoxide), the national suicide rate dropped by 40%.

[philwelch]

Suicide is often an impulsive act a person might commit once in their life. Rudeness is a persistent pattern of behavior that exhibits itself many times a day.

[zackattack]

I agree. Rudeness is a subtle act of body language that often goes undetected, and is probably only made more explicitly obvious by the presence of technology.

[VMG]

correlation does not equal causation