It would be easy to attribute the shift in greetings to a broader shift in society: the adjectival greetings could be a bid for affection; the summoning greetings a bid for attention. But such an association is too easy and I think it’s simply wrong. It’s better to realize that greetings are generally phatic: that we pick a particular greeting because that’s what we’re used to, and to acknowledge that we’ve always wanted both affection and attention.
