WASHINGTON - Americans' fast-paced, high-tech existence has taken a toll on the civil in society.

From road rage in the morning commute to high decibel cell-phone conversations that ruin dinner out, men and women behaving badly has become the hallmark of a hurry-up world. An increasing informality - flip-flops at the White House, even - combined with self-absorbed communication gadgets and a demand for instant gratification have strained common courtesies to the breaking point.

"All of these things lead to a world with more stress, more chances for people to be rude to each other," said Peter Post, a descendent of etiquette expert Emily Post and an instructor on business manners through the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.

A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70 percent questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The trend is noticed in large and small places alike, although more urban people report bad manners, 74 percent, then do people in rural areas, 67 percent.

Peggy Newfield, founder and president of Personal Best, said the generation that came of age in the times-a-changin' 1960s and 1970s are now parents who don't stress the importance of manners, such as opening a door for a female.

A whopping 93 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll faulted parents for failing to teach their children well.

Sulking athletes and boorish celebrities grab the headlines while television and Hollywood often glorify crude behavior.

Nearly everyone has a story of the rude or the crude, but fewer are willing to fess up to boorish behavior themselves.

Only 13 percent in the poll would admit to making an obscene gesture while driving; only 8 percent said they had used their cell phones in a loud or annoying manner around others. But 37 percent in the survey of 1,001 adults questioned Aug. 22 and 23 said they had used a swear word in public.

More and more, manners are taught less and less.

Carole Krohn, 71, a retired school bus driver in Deer Park, Wash., said she has seen children's behavior deteriorate over the years, including one time when a boy tossed a snowball at the back of another driver's head.

The most common complaint about rudeness in the poll was aggressive or reckless driving, with 91 percent citing it as the most frequent discourtesy.

Margaret Hahn-Dupont, a 39-year-old law professor from Oradell, N.J., noticed that some of her students showed little respect for authority and felt free to express their discontent and demand better grades.

Close on the heels of the baby boomers are the affluent teens and young adults who have known nothing but the conveniences of computers and cell phones, devices that take them away from face-to-face encounters and can be downright annoying in a crowd.

"They got a lot of things and feel entitled to get a lot of things," said Hahn-Dupont.