Demands of work and family leave many people without needed leisure. We're often edgy and on the brink, and so the commitment to respond is attenuated or abandoned. More is at risk than etiquette. The issue is weightier than the bruises inflicted in the microcosms of everyday relations. The social compact is at stake.
Society is held together by the assumption of responsiveness.
I say good morning to you and you respond with a good morning of your own. You ask me a question and feel compelled to answer. Such reciprocity is the implied anthropological dynamic on which we all depend for a meaningful and productive social life. When calls go unanswered and the loop remains open we are headed for greater isolation and social breakdown. True, we are pulled and tugged by the merciless demands which modern life forces us to endure.