Author of the week: Daniel Post Senning

last updated 8 January 2015

Daniel Post Senning’s great-great-grandmother would’ve been proud, said Lily Rothman in Time.com. A fourth-generation descendant of Emily Post, Senning today runs the website of her namesake institute, which continues a century-long family tradition of teaching etiquette to the masses. And he’s also expanding the brand. Senning’s new book, Emily Post’s Manners in a Digital World, focuses on the various etiquette dilemmas created by digital communication, including social media and email. Good manners, Senning says, are far from obsolete. “Every generation witnesses the changes that occur in manners over a lifetime and thinks that society’s in decline,” he says. “Believe it or not, I almost feel we’re on a swing back toward a little more formality.”

Senning can be as put off as anyone by the bad manners of the tech-obsessed, said Molly Driscoll in CSMonitor.com. The shopper who talks on a cellphone while dealing with a cashier, for instance. “It’s rude to just ignore someone who is helping you,” he says. “Yes, it’s their job. And it’s yours to pay attention.” Oversharing on social media is another no-no. “You can always delete something you decide you don’t want on your wall, but you can’t take back the impression it made while it was visible,” he says. Yet to Senning, there’s nothing new about the spirit behind such rules. “Etiquette is a combination of manners and principles,” he says. “The manners that express them change over time, but the heart of good etiquette I think has stayed the same.”