Social Media and Empathy

I really thought I knew how this was going to play out. Did you look at the title and think to yourself, “I know where is going. ” I thought when I started researching whether empathy is affected by social media, that I would find social media sites like Facebook are destroying our ability to be empathetic. But when I dug into the data, I was very surprised!

So what’s the deal? Does social media in fact nullify our empathy, or does it affect it at all? After reading a lot (a lot!) of articles with no basis in science about empathy and social media, I finally discovered some scientific research that answers the question.

Self Presentation and Disclosure

When we first meet someone, we do what’s called self-presentation, or self-disclosure. This is a basic want or need to “present” yourself in whichever way you want to be perceived. People do this in real life and on the internet. Think of it as the “getting to know you” behavior. When we present ourselves in person, it would seem that we would be more honest and forthright. But sites like Facebook, where we are linked up with people we have probably met in person, actually might foster better self-presentation!

Of course, there’s always that catfish that may lurk in the bunch, but in reality, for the most part, people are self presenting themselves accurately. Because we now live in a society where social media is prevalent. It’s taken as a matter of fact that my Facebook will reflect what kind of person I am in life. But why is self-presentation important? And what does it have to do with empathy?

Empathy and Visualization

It’s proven that visualization works. It works because we empathize with people performing actions that we want to or will perform. What? I’m not kidding. When you see someone throwing a ball, the part of your brain that throws balls is activated. When we see someone in pain, we are empathetic to them because our brains are hardwired to visualize ourselves in the same situations.

So, when we self-present accurately on social media sites, we are more likely to empathize with others. This is because we believe they are also self-presenting truthfully. And don’t forget, many of these people (for some of us, that might mean most of them) we have met in person. We know that they are who they say they are. So when we see posts reflecting they are going through hard times, we empathize with them, because we know them.

The Science

Researchers Helen G.M. Vossena and Patti M. Valkenburg conducted a study on 10-14 year old adolescents. They wanted to find out if those kids were less empathetic due to their social media use. What they discovered was that overall, most of the children in the study actually had increased cognitive and affective empathy! ” Specifically, adolescents’ social media use improved both their ability to understand (cognitive empathy) and share the feelings of their peers (affective empathy). ”

It’s really counter-intuitive. I know that I thought less face-to-face interactions meant less empathy. In reality, your brain doesn’t differentiate between online interactions and in-person interactions! By actively engaging in social media (and I don’t mean passively scrolling by), such as commenting and commiserating, these children actually became more empathetic to their peers.

Sites like Facebook and Instagram allow for a lot of self-presentation, because we can see who we are dealing with. We are more likely to empathize with the people that we interact with online there. But what about Reddit, and other sites that people interact with more anonymity?

When there is a lack of self-presentation, the ability to identify with your fellow man is significantly decreased. They are outside our circle, and easily ignored or even mocked. We only have the ability to empathize when we can visualize the person.

Facebook Crazy

So, do we now spend all our time online? Obviously, there is such a thing as too much screen time (addiction, anyone?). But a healthy amount of social media with accurate self-presentation is probably fine. It’s not ruining our ability to interact.

What do you think? Is social media ruining society? Or is it just the next useful communication tool? Please comment below with your thoughts, I can’t wait to hear from you! Until next time!