Growing Apathy With Social Media?

[Mr. Vyce]

I just read this article about the host of one of my favorite childhood shows, Bill Nye the Science Guy, briefly collapsing during a presentation at the University of Southern California yesterday. (Fortunately, he's OK.) The notable part of it all was that no one in the audience got up to physically check if he was alright; the students immediately "pulled out their mobile devices to post information online about Nye's lack of consciousness."

And three days ago (Nov. 14th), YouTube comedian "Messy Mya" was shot after leaving his girlfriend's baby shower. Even when he hit the ground, a crowd formed around him, with many people taking out their cell-phones...and photographing his body before posting the pictures on Twitter and YouTube (all of which have reportedly been deleted). Both articles kinda remind me of the bystander effect.

So I'm wondering what you all think: Is social media use making us more indifferent and/or apathetic?

[Hunter]

No, I think it's revealing how self centered and narcissistic that we've become as a society.

[Oniya]

I just happened to catch one of a series of ads for a new mobile-device-plan with 'free texting, free email, and free web access.'  I've seen two so far - one of a woman breaking up with her boyfriend by texting him, emailing him, and updating her Facebook status to 'single'; and one with a man criticizing his neighbor's holiday display and holiday e-card.  Both characters are literally feet away from their target, and opt to use electronic means to get their messages across.

My comment to Mr. Oniya was 'Let me get this straight.  They're advertising that if you get their product, you can be a jerk in at least three different ways.  But it's all free.'

[Nyarly]

No, I think it's revealing how self centered and narcissistic that we've become as a society.

"We've become" is quite incorrect. We always were like that, it just became more obvious now.

[Hunter]

"We've become" is quite incorrect. We always were like that, it just became more obvious now.

A hundred years ago, I don't think we were so callous.   After all, people didn't need to lock their doors.

[Synecdoche17]

After all, people didn't need to lock their doors.

I hate to go all internet-sarcasm on you, but really, [citation needed]. Violent crime rates have dropped significantly in the last twenty years after thirty years of growth - hardly an indication that today's citizens are more sociopathic than yesterday's.
Yes, crime is worse than it was in the 1960s, but criminology has some very sketchy roots - it's hard to make accurate statements about crime in the 1910s, to use your "hundred years ago" comment, when many people did not bother to report crimes because of fear, social stigma (especially with regards to rape and child abuse), or the sheer inability of early 20th century technology to solve many types of crimes.

I also doubt we can defend previous generations when the 1920s and 1930s contained such egregious flare-ups of gangland violence. I'm actually fairly optimistic about the people of today.

[Callie Del Noire]

Apathy with social media..


Meh.. who cares.


All joking at the title aside.. I think it's sad that no one tried to render aid or call the cops. But wasn't there something similar a few years ago in Britain? A guy got beat to death while folks filmed it on their phones?

[Oniya]

This does pre-date all of that social media, though.  People ignore what they don't want to see all the time.  There was a song written in 1967 called 'Outside of a Small Circle of Friends' that was inspired by the Kitty Genovese murder.  (Many news reports of the time said that 38 people 'watched' as she was stalked and killed, however, they were all inside isolated apartments.  Given the terrain, the locations of the witnesses, and the events of the murders, it is unlikely that any one person saw all of it.  Not that this is a real excuse for any of them not to respond, but it does change the popular misconception that a small mob of people sat around gawking.) 


The only real thing that Facebook and Twitter et al. have changed is making the apathy that much more visible.

[Callie Del Noire]

This does pre-date all of that social media, though.  People ignore what they don't want to see all the time.  There was a song written in 1967 called 'Outside of a Small Circle of Friends' that was inspired by the Kitty Genovese murder.  (Many news reports of the time said that 38 people 'watched' as she was stalked and killed, however, they were all inside isolated apartments.  Given the terrain, the locations of the witnesses, and the events of the murders, it is unlikely that any one person saw all of it.  Not that this is a real excuse for any of them not to respond, but it does change the popular misconception that a small mob of people sat around gawking.) 


The only real thing that Facebook and Twitter et al. have changed is making the apathy that much more visible.

D'oh. I totally forgot the Kitty Genovese murder. That was the CLASSIC example crowd apathy.

[Alsheriam]

Not just that. I think social media is destroying democracy.

Things like Facebook, they provide what I like to call opinion enclosureism. Where healthy public discourse and  discussions are made up of positive and opposing viewpoints to be considered, Facebook allows mostly for either a 'Like' and positive response, and it's easy as heck for the user to simply delete any viewpoints that disagree with the user, or remove the person from friends list so that the user will never need to hear from him/her ever again.

This is directly opposite to Socrates, when he preferred to spend double the time to research and consider his opposition's point of view instead of focusing on his own case. Facebook isn't helping with general intellectual development, and Twitter even more so when it allows shallow, unthinking people to think that 140 characters is enough to express a full-bodied, nuanced opinion.

[Nyarly]

Now you are just overreacting. There is no way that social media has such a big influence on democracy. It's even the same with the apathy thing: Through these sites we merely can see how stupid and a lot people truly are.

[Alsheriam]

Now you are just overreacting. There is no way that social media has such a big influence on democracy. It's even the same with the apathy thing: Through these sites we merely can see how stupid and a lot people truly are.

Granted, I'm not American, but I'm a citizen of a country that so happens to be one of US' closest allies and so what happens there will absolutely affect me. So, I do have a stake in what I have been observing.

Social media does have that big of an impact on democracy. Election 2008 would not have been characterized as so if the Obama campaign did not capitalize this well on social media and generated just that much money through small, casual online donations. If social media didn't have that much impact, people wouldn't be taking Sarah Palin's Facebook & Twitter posts seriously either.

While it can be argued that people have been this stupid all this time, the opinion enclosureism effect is further expanded when people can have the Internet, and need not get out of the house or dorm room to meet people and cannot easily escape opposing viewpoints as easily as clicking 'Unfriend' on Facebook. That is my core argument.

[Inkidu]

It really is just they bystander effect. It's just they use something else to occupy their time and see if someone else will come along. Instead of just walking past they twitter or facebook.

I honestly have an apathy towards social media. I got a facebook once and I haven't checked it in three years after two log-ons. I don't think anyone cares enough about what I'm doing that merits a look.

[Oniya]

I honestly have an apathy towards social media. I got a facebook once and I haven't checked it in three years after two log-ons. I don't think anyone cares enough about what I'm doing that merits a look.

^This.  Only in my case it's an abandoned LJ, and an abandoned Blurty.  And a few abandoned mailing lists.

[Alsheriam]

Facebook does have its uses. As a college student, I've grown used to having classmates who don't read texts on their cellphones or read their email very frequently, and when I need to chase after them for project group work, the best way I can get the fastest response possible is by going after them on Facebook IM. Sad, but true.

Also, it's a godsend to the intelligence community. People are giving out their information willingly, and they're so factual about it! Oh god, we can do so much less work now. Also, it's used for less-than-benign intelligence gathering: http://www.deathvalleymag.com/2010/11/08/warning-to-all-civilian-contractors-on-facebook-%E2%80%93-please-distribute/

Facebook is also quite effective as a marketing tool. I work at a LAN gaming center part-time and it's pretty effective to use to spread out information about promotional events and/or upcoming tournaments.