Sophomore Patrick Hamilton waltzed his way through ballroom dancing classes at Rebecca’s Cotillion, a class that teaches etiquette, among other skills, to middle school students. He learned the foxtrot, swing dance and table manners when he was 11 and again at 14.

“I had a blast,” he said. “I didn’t like it in sixth grade, but when I started again in eighth grade, I really embraced it… It wasn’t too formal for me.”

Hamilton is a part of a dwindling group of students who learn etiquette early on and apply it later in life. According to an Oct. 18 TIME Magazine article titled “You Annoyed Me at Hello: Why Kids Still Need to Learn Manners,” teenagers in today’s society are less  mannered than those of previous generations, especially in terms of not addressing adults by their proper title, a  habit seen as respect for their elders.

“I’m not sure I would agree with the broad generality that all teenagers have no manners, but I think the lack of Mr. and Mrs. has come about because of athletics and coaching,” Rebecca’s Cotillion instructor Rebecca Malenkos said. “Many coaches refer to themselves on a first-name basis with their athletes.”

However, Malenkos said the main cause of the shift to less courtesy in the younger generation is the rise of technology as the main means for communication.

A 2011 survey by Intel reported that children ages 8 to 12 spend about two to three hours using their mobile devices per day. Malenkos said she believes bad social behavior begins when children spend time inside or on computers instead of going outside to play with their peers.

“I don’t think that teenagers are rude,” Malenkos said. “I think they just don’t have as many interpersonal, social, face-to-face opportunities as they did in the past. They don’t have as many opportunities to learn as they used to. Technology, I think, is really to blame.”

According to an Oct. 26 article in The New York Times titled “Let Your Smartphone Deliver the Bad News,” there is a recent upward trend of people canceling plans by text soon before the event starts.

Malenkos also noted that teenagers don’t feel uncomfortable or embarrassed about abandoning plans, she said, because they can’t hear the disappointment in the host’s voice.

“Sympathy and emotion don’t come through in a text, and you have no idea what’s on the other end,” she said. “You don’t know what the person is feeling when they get that nasty email.”

Even though  new forms of communication through technology are forming a more casual society, both Malenkos and Hamilton said manners are still necessary for students and the general public to function.

“In some respects, I think (teenagers are) too casual,” Malenkos said. She cited the inappropriate dancing at past Homecoming dances, saying, “I don’t like that dancing has become a representation of a sexual act. I think it’s ugly.

“However, Malenkos said students aren’t entirely to blame. “They see Beyoncé out there, and that’s what they see, so that’s what they do.”

Teenagers need good etiquette to move forward in their lives, Hamilton said.

“My father is a businessman, and if the person he’s selling to says something bad about the product he’s selling, he can’t just start yelling at that person,” he said. “He has to show manners, dress up (nicely),  show that he cares.”

Hamilton also said that people who think good manners are too formal for today’s society are wrong.

He said, “Manners play a huge role in society.”