The Twitter Effect, or The End of Empathy?
When protests and riots broke out in Tehran two weeks ago, Twitter rapidly eclipsed CNN, the New York Times, and every other major news outlet to become the primary source for real-time, on-the-ground updates on what was happening. The event will doubtless change journalism forever, in more ways than one. But let's put aside the discussion of access, immediacy, and who can rightly be called a "journalist" for now, and focus instead on the psychic effects of this new technology.
For years, I've been anticipating the death of literacy due to our high-tech world; I didn't expect the loss of human empathy too. But according to a new study from the University of Southern California, the rapid-fire stream of information from sites like Twitter and Facebook may be stunting our emotional growth. We're deluged with more information than we can process, the report states, and as researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang says, "If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality."
Jason Calacanis, an early Internet pioneer and champion, refers to this as Internet Asperger's Syndrome. On his blog, Calacanis.com, the author describes how he's seen Twitter and other new media transform the ways we interact. Today, he writes, it's all about the numbers: how many followers do you have, how many page-views do you get, what is your monthly subscriber count? But numbers aren't human beings. No longer do we see the eyes of the person sharing heartbreaking news; no longer do we think twice about flaming a fellow forumite on a discussion board. It's all removed, virtual, computerized.
Except it isn't. There are still real people at the ends of each Internet connection, and sometimes the anonymity of online communiques dehumanizes them for those on the other end -- and vice versa. To cite an extreme but very real example: the case of Choi Jin Sil, the South Korean film star who reportedly killed herself last fall because of rumors circulating the web about her.
I find it refreshing but also ironic that Jason Calacanis is now denouncing the Internet for sapping us of our humanity. Nine years ago, I worked for Calacanis at a magazine he founded that covered the Internet boom, and then, very briefly, its bust. In the office, the staff communicated almost exclusively via Yahoo! Instant Messenger, even people sitting across the desk from one another. The office was silent save the sound of fingers clickety-clacking on computer keys. But the psychic space of that open, lofty room was a cacophony of arguments, editorial debates, and if you were lucky enough to have a friend on staff, emotional support.
When it came time for our weekly editorial meetings, I found that most of us had difficulty looking each other in the eye, and there was very little rapport among the staff outside of work. A difference of opinion or misunderstanding might never get resolved, and fester until the parties involved could only work together via IM. It got so tense in that office that I developed a severe muscle spasm in my neck and could barely move my head for months. Nothing virtual about that.
Internet Asperger's, indeed. And it's only gotten worse in the past decade. In 2007, McKenzie Funk wrote a harrowing piece for Harper's about his time at a Chinese Internet addiction clinic. It's a brilliant article, but only read it if you're prepared to panic that you, too, might have a problem.
Or it might help you relax, because you most likely don't spend nearly as much time online as the people Funk describes in his article. (Have you spent days on-end at an Internet cafe without eating or sleeping? I didn't think so.)
Either way, I find it encouraging when someone like Calacanis sounds an alarm about our increasingly digitized lifestyle. And the fact that he wrote about it on his blog, and I'm writing about it here, can be taken as a positive sign that it's possible to be of the 21st Century and weary of it at the same time.
[Image: Pasquale D'Silva]
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A few weeks ago I wrote a blog for Change.org Poverty in America on this same topic. http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/activist_passivist_sic
So glad to know I wasn't off base.
Diane Nilan
HEAR US Inc.
www.hearus.us
Thanks so much for reading and posting the link to your blog, Diane. I agree -- it's nice when something we've been noticing is validated by others who are noticing the same thing. I enjoyed your post, and I'll be sure to keep an eye on your work in the future!