We’ve all read the studies, giving
us 101 reasons to quit social media. It
makes us depressed, everybody’s a jerk, it’s consumption without substance, on
and on and on. I’m not here to tell you
social media makes you evil in fact, I’d say it perhaps it shows us who we
truly are. It’s just that, maybe, who we
truly are isn’t quite as picturesque as we’d like to believe.
Lets say you’re walking down the street
and you see somebody asking for a few dollars.
As you walk past you make eye contact, and now you feel obligated to at
least acknowledge their presence, perhaps even give them some spare change. This is called being kind, and it’s a pretty
typical behavior, you’d probably even call it a social norm.
But what if the same situation
where presented on the internet, an acquaintance you follow makes a post about needing
a few dollars to pay rent, would you respond?
Most people probably wouldn’t, you where willing to help somebody when
you where face to face, but over the internet, you can ignore the post without worrying
about violating the social norms, nobody’s going to judge you in the privacy of
your own home.
This puts forth the idea of being nice
is just a social norm, a behavior we only participate in because its
expected. But that’s obviously not
completely right, plenty of people go out of their way for acts of
kindness. Far beyond what we would reasonably
expect.
So why do people do this, well, most
of the time, when people offer help to one another they do so with the belief
they will ultimately benefit from their effort. This is what is known as reciprocal altruism. Not to say that this form of kindness is any
less valid than a “moral” kind, but it’s important to recognize that kindness
typically comes with strings attached.
Kindness on the Internet
(photo by nerdreactor)
These days especially, it seems as
though every day there’s some big news story about somebody being nice. Often this niceness is recorded and posted to
social media where everybody can see it and offer their praise. Almost like that was the whole idea behind
the act.
So, what happens if you find
yourself in a situation where you can’t benefit from being nice. Say for example, your peer group are thousands
of miles away, and its unlikely you’ll ever meet face to face. A scenario that is becoming typical amongst
social media users. In this scenario, you’re
pretty unlikely to be able to cash in on all that good reputation you’ve built,
and as a result, you may be less inclined to create such a reputation in the
first place.
And in fact, this seems to be the
case. Several studies state “research
indicates increases in narcissism and decreases in empathy among American young
adults since the late 1970s [1]” and that “youth are more prone to think about
their online activities from a largely self-focused perspective[2]”.
I think its typically agreed on
that kindness, and the helping of others stems heavily from one’s own empathy, or
the ability to “put yourself in their shoes”.
And social media seems to have the effect of decreasing such a
feeling.
Famous Comedian Louis C.K. states his contempt for social media and phones in general
stating that they prevent people from learning empathy.
(Louis C.K. on Conan)
Specific Instances
Let’s look at a specific case. In January 2017, a livestream was posted to Facebook. This livestream consisted of a group of four individuals
beating up a mentally disabled 18-year-old in Chicago. The livestream was viewed simultaneously by
16,000 people, yet, over the course of the livestream, the assailants actually complained
they the video wasn’t popular enough. Additionally,
it took police over a day to find the injured man, as nobody had even bothered
to report this. These people where
willing to commit such atrocious acts for some internet fame, and bystanders not
doing anything to stop it.
It’s been shown this the bystander effect is made much more
prevalent when the situation is presented through social media. In another specific instance, a study found
that in cases of people announcing they were going to kill themselves online
many where met with taunting and indifference.
Not only did the bystanders not try and offer help, but they actually spurred
these people on. There was a complete lack of responsibility, surely this is
not something anybody would do if the situation where presented face to face.
Conclusion
So, what does this all mean, well social
norms dictate how we act in our normal day to day life. These norms also expect us treat each other
certain ways, typically those ways being helpful and kind. But these norms only work when we’re held
accountable for upholding them. In the
real world, if somebody is cruel they tend to face consequences. But the internet undermines all that. Anonymity completely removes all
responsibility for upholding norms, any consequence you might face won’t have
any effect on you, just your account.
And even on less anonymous sites, such as Facebook, there’s still a
strong increase in the bystander effect.
Additionally, most of these norms only hold because of the idea of reciprocal
altruism. On the internet its much
harder to be repaid for your kindness, leading to less kindness being created.
Sources
Berryman, C.,
Ferguson, C., & Negy, C. (2018). Social Media Use and Mental Health among
Young Adults. The Psychiatric quarterly, 89(2), 307-314.
doi:http://services.lib.mtu.edu:2080/10.1007/s11126-017-9535-6
James, C., Davis,
K., Charmaraman, L., Konrath, S., Slovak, P., Weinstein, E., & Yarosh, L.
(2017, November). Digital life and youth well-being, social connectedness,
empathy, and narcissism. Pediatrics, 140(5), 71-75.
doi:http://services.lib.mtu.edu:2080/10.1542/peds.2016-1758F
Yan, H. (2017,
January 5). Chicago torture video: 4 charged with hate crimes, kidnapping. In
CNN. Retrieved from
https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/05/us/chicago-facebook-live-beating/index.html
C.K., L. (Actor).
(2013). Louis C.K. Hates Cell Phones [Online video]. Team Coco. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c
What an important topic to talk about especially because social media is so prevalent in today's society. I totally agree that the ability to be anonymous on social media is a huge reason why cyberbullying or trolling happens so often. What do you think a comparable consequence could be so that online users felt the same way as if they did the same act face-to-face instead? Or would this even help? Or could finding something that is similar to face-to-face reciprocal altruism have a greater effect?
ReplyDeleteI think that you bring up a good point about online consequences. There are people online that call out others for having poor taste when it comes to sensitive subjects but I would argue that these people are far outnumber to those who make said remarks. I think that the only consequence for such things would be other members of the online community banning together to make these people understand that this is not acceptable behavior.
DeleteBy consequence, do you mean something like a punishment. That’s a interesting idea, I know that on reddit, another social media platform, you can be banned for being obnoxious. This doesn’t stop you from reading others content but does stop you from commenting. It would be interesting to see a system like this put into place in more social, social media sites like Facebook. If your account had some sort of strike system that led to a ban, I bet that would encourage people to be a little nicer.
DeleteI really enjoyed this article! it is so relevant to how people interact online vs in person. I assume we have all seen meems of these types of situations. One that I have always found very accurate is the amount of "shit talking" people do online. The meem is captioned as "People online vs Real life" and in the video it is a bunch of dogs barking and showing their teeth at each other through a gate. Then when the gate is opened they continue to bark through the gate instead of going face to face. Once they realize they are able to be face to face they turn and walk the other direction. Do you think there is anyway to help this issue? I have posted the video I am talking about below
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK6_tjizu_g
Yeah, I’ve seen that too. And its so true, I remember having Xbox live when I was younger, and the fights my friends and I would get in over voice comms where so out of character for us. There must just be something about not having to back up your threats that allows people to go wild.
DeleteI agree I've had plenty of friends that turn from relatively quiet people into obnoxious bully types in discord calls because there is no consequence to what they are saying. I've always found the concept very annoying.
DeleteI think the issue with the majority of the kindness that is given across social media is peoples want to be recognized for it. Why do you think these is so much "giving" on social media? Also, I very much enjoyed reading your post Ethan. And what can we do to overcome the bystander effect that social media seems to be grasped by? Do you have any tips?
ReplyDeleteI think that in general people want to receive credit for their good deeds, recognition is nice, but with social media, that’s all you really get. Compared to helping somebody in real life, and potentially forming a new connection, or receiving a material reward, being kind on social media just isn’t as appealing. For the bystander effect, I was actually surprised by that myself, I would have thought people would be more likely to call others out, since they wouldn’t be ostracized by the group, so I can’t really offer any advice.
DeleteAs a person who's personally been affected negatively by social media, and one who's been off it for a couple of years already, I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteIt seems far easier to demonize people on social media, especially due to group polarization but also because, well.... it's not a person. It's just an idea, letters on a screen, they're expressing, right? And you despise the idea--political or otherwise--so why not respond in kind?
Even if people don't consciously think that.... it seems sometimes as if subconsciously, that's exactly what's going through their mind.
I know exactly what you mean, I think my Facebook still has a picture of me from middle school, due to how infrequently I use it. And yep, I think the big problem is the fact that there’s no facial communication. Since we’re wired to be social animals, not seeing somebody face to face seems to just not kick off our social instincts, meaning we have less reservations with expressing our ideas.
DeleteI think that this article brings up a good point. We all see a lot of bad things on our timelines but we also see a lot of good as well. The thing is that sometimes I feel as though these acts of kindness are disingenuous and are solely used to garner likes (as you said reciprocal altruism). I think that there is a problem with people just trying to help others to help themselves. But on the flipside I think that social media has made it a lot easier to crowdsource funds that otherwise would not have been raised. If you can make a worthy story go viral you will be able to obtain the funds that you need. And many people choose to donate anonymously so this is not another example of reciprocal altruism, it is simply people being good.
ReplyDeleteI think even if people are operating purely on egotistical values, they can still make a positive influence in the world. And your right, it’s not like everybody is purely out for themselves. Morality is different for everybody, even with all the bad social media can bring out, it’s brought out some good as well.
DeleteYou gave the example of a livestream of four individuals beating up another individual where 16,000 people viewed the abuse. I do not know much about this specific incident, but it got me thinking about what someone could do in this situation. If I saw that video, I'm not sure what I would do. Would calling the police help in a situation like that? I would assume that if I'm watching it online the actual event would be happening far away, and so calling 911 where I am would not be of help. Do you have any suggestions of actions someone could take in a situation like this? I genuinely don't know how someone could help in this situation. I would imagine that time-sensitive situations like this would be very hard to help with over the internet.
ReplyDeleteI agree that calling 911 might not be appropriate for such a situation, and I'm wondering if there is possibly somewhere/some organization where people could message or email links concerning this kind of stuff like live streaming abuse. I looked around a little bit online and it seems that it's primarily the job of the online service to remove videos but I didn't see anything on whether they have to inform police or so on about what is happening. However, I'm not really apart of social media and my knowledge about it is limited to the videos on YouTube and TV shows I watch. I too would appreciate information on how to get officials involved instead of just having social media cites take down content.
DeleteI admit I don’t know myself what people could do in a situation like this, perhaps report it to Facebook and have Facebook report the info to authorities, but that would still take some time. Refusing to watch it may deprive the streamers of their validation, leading them to be less likely to do this sort of thing in the future.
DeleteRose, that is a great question! I found another blog post about calling 911 for emergencies in other states. It is possible but less probable that the dispatcher can make the right connection to the place of emergency. If you would like, the web address is her for you to look at: https://www.verywellhealth.com/calling-911-for-someone-in-another-state-1298353
DeleteHope this helps!
Great job on this topic! I felt all the points you made were solid, and were easy to understand. It is always crazy to me to see how drastic the change in behavior can be when it is in real life versus online. Why do we feel the need to have our screen protect and hide us from consequences, when we shouldn't be acting in a way where that is even needed.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned this in a previous comment. I would guess that since we’re wired to be social animals, without face to face connection, we just don’t activate our social instincts. This would lead us to be less reserved in our actions, as we can’t foresee any consequences.
DeleteThis is a great post and it makes you think about all of the horrible things that are posted on social media. The fact that people said that the video about the Chicago kid "did not get enough views" is absolutely disgusting. That is a human being who is getting beaten. I feel that social media blinds us from reality sometimes. Like you said, everyone can hide behind the screen, but when it comes to being face to face, people tend to acknowledge the social norms. I do use social media daily and sometimes the awful things that people post really get to me. It is crazy to think that people think it is okay to post horrible things and then have nobody really say or do anything about it.
ReplyDeleteYep, its pretty crazy that people can form such a disconnect with their actions when their sent through a screen rather than face to face. I guess some people are just so starved for attention they’ll do anything to get it, even if they know what they’re doing is wrong.
DeleteThis post is so relevant to society toady! Do you think part of the reason that our generation and upcoming generations are less likely to be nice and to help others is due partially to the increase of social media? Do you think that if social media was to never have happened or to not be as popular things in that dynamic would be different? I definitely agree with you that when it comes to face-to-face contact we are nicer then then we are over in the internet. Do you think there is anything we can do to change this?
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure social media has that much of an impact on actual face to face communications. Although I suppose it may be the case that people learn how to act through social media, and then mirror those action in life. I’m not one to advocate the destruction of technology, I think we’ll just need to adapt, much like I had to take internet literacy classes in middle school, perhaps one day we’ll have some sort of social media etiquette classes.
DeleteI personally have never had a social media account until I got on Discord last semester for a group programming project (which is the only form of social media I am on). As a result, I never see all this gruesome stuff on social media and I'm probably much happier for it. I find it quite unbelievable and disgusting how people can film abuse, post it on the internet, and have no one say anything till the police find it. It doesn't take much effort to say something online and with anonymity, you can be protected when people try to 'attack' you online for doing the right thing. Saying something online, in the safety of your own home, involves less risk than saying something in person because you might get beaten up too. Maybe some people may be worried about being asked, if they told an officer, “what kind of stuff do you look at for this to show up in your feed?” Overall, I agree that this kind of behavior is unbelievable. I also agree that social media desensitizes us, via distance, from the reality behind the posts and videos taken.
ReplyDeleteI personally stopped using social media some time in high school. I just never found it compelling, so my experience is mostly from the outside. My friends would tell me stories about Facebook arguments, and how ruthless people could be. I do agree that people are more likely to act out when they feel safe, such as when they are behind a screen
DeleteIt really seems to be that being anonymous brings out the dark side of humanity. I've definitely noticed the profound lack of kindness throughout the internet, on social media, forums, and on video games I've played such as MMORPGs. And when you have websites that provide even stronger anonymity (where you don't have any form of information or account linked to you) then the worst of humanity comes out. I've noticed in general that there is far more insulting, bullying, rudeness, and so on over the internet than in person in addition to the lack of kind deeds being performed.
ReplyDeleteIt really does speak to the idea that people are not innately kind - they must get something out of it themselves in order to be.
I've always found social media to be a toxic place that in general causes nothing but trouble. This article does a lot to make me feel even better about the decision to completely stay off social media. The anonymity that being on the internet provides is to much for us to control ourselves. Good blog a joy to read.
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