Social Media How to Show Compassion After Attack

As news of the terrorist attacks in Paris spread through social media, responses followed a pattern I've come up to know well.

First, shock and grief. Friends and followers share video and pictures that are almost pornographic in their deracinated intensity. The images announced with no context, and we run across just running, screaming, guns, and claret.

After the shock, reactions beginning to carve up along lines that are ideological and temperamental. Some people are simply, understandably, angry. From them, I hear calls for vengeance. And, sometimes, they seem to be searching for scapegoats. On Twitter, in particular, I saw many calls to bar Syrian refugees because they might be carrying terrorists among their number. Arguments and threats leap up like dandelions.

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In that location is another grouping, I notice, that calls for caution, pity, and understanding. Even the members of this network, however, showtime to plow on each other afterwards a few days, often by targeting expressions of grief or solidarity.

Final week, for example, many people "French-flagged" their profile pictures, overlaying faces with the tricolor. These were roundly criticized in my network, sometimes as racist. Critics ask: Why don't you comprehend yourself in the colors of Iraqi or Lebanese flags, when terrorism strikes those places? There are always commentaries from sites like the DailyKos or the Huffington Mail that point out the imbalance of media coverage: Why Paris, and non Beirut? On social media, people become what journalist Jamiles Lartey calls "tragedy hipsters," every bit in, "Bro—I care about suffering and death that yous've never fifty-fifty heard of." The status update becomes a status symbol, like a Prius.

It'south as if the terrorists injected a virus into our social networks that causes good people to plow on each other, like the rage-zombies in the movie 28 Days Later.

I'k using the Paris debates every bit an example, but I don't think it's controversial to say that in 2015, social media tin be a vicious identify, no affair what we're debating. On platforms similar Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and 4chan, users trigger anxiety, stress, incertitude, and even hatred in others, many of whom they call "friends." Much of this activity takes the form of incessant policing of manners and linguistic communication, which is why I sometimes call the Internet "the scolding car."

I don't believe this is motivated by malice, necessarily, merely rather by a need to exert some kind of ability over a state of affairs in which we feel otherwise powerless. Seeing violence over and over on social media triggers a subterranean fight-or-flight response—but since few of us are in a position to stop terrorists directly, we lash out at the closest targets.

It's tempting to dismiss social media firestorms as a sideshow. The cable news leader, Fox, has about 1.7 million viewers during prime fourth dimension. That sounds impressive. But a seventh of the globe's population visits Facebook every twenty-four hour period. At whatever given moment, up to two billion people around the world will be logged into a social media site or app, co-ordinate to my back-of-the-envelope calculation. Social media aren't just a major source of news and opinion; they've as well go a very significant identify of community. There we spend time with far-flung family, friends, and colleagues. There we take some of the most meaningful discussions of our lives.

When the community becomes toxic, that hurts its members. Scientists have only just started to study the human relationship between social media and well-being, merely the bear witness and then far suggests that what nosotros say, read, lookout, and hear through social media shapes our mental health and even offline relationships like our marriages, according to a growing number of studies. 1 paper from this year, for instance, found a link between decease by heart disease and angry language on Twitter. That's consistent with everything else we know nearly the link betwixt social connections and subjective well-beingness. The friendships and communities you have on social media are real, if unprecedented.

Information technology'due south fourth dimension to start acting like they thing. It's time for usa to pause and enquire ourselves: Equally private humans, how can we support each other's well-being on social media?

Few studies accept dealt direct with this question. The companies themselves take given some thought to how to blueprint interactions then as to increase well-beingness. In fact, my Greater Practiced Science Middle colleagues Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas worked directly with Facebook to create changes that many users at present have for granted, like giving friends kinder, more specific feedback on photographs you don't like.

But few users, it seems to me, accept responsibility for the well-being of communities they create through their social media accounts—that includes people I know who in real life would never dream of maxim an unkind discussion to a stranger's face but can be quite nasty on Facebook. Few seem to think about how the contagion of anger or contempt might infect the larger network. This becomes more than, not less, important when a tragedy like Paris strikes.

Here are v suggestions, by no means comprehensive, for fostering the well-existence of others online, based on a combination of my reading of the inquiry and my experience.

Because the inquiry is and then shallow—and my experience and then narrow—I invite readers to discuss these recommendations, and to delight make their ain in the comments.

one. Bring your best self to social media

There is a inquiry-tested do nosotros promote on Greater Adept in Action called "Best Possible Self for Relationships." I've plant that applying this exercise to social media can exist quite thought-provoking. It asks y'all to imagine your relationships going as well as they mayhap could, and and then writing that vision down. It's really about cocky-discovery: Who do I want to be and what do I want out of life?

Here are the steps, which I've adapted for thinking about your social media persona:

• Take a moment to imagine your life in the time to come, and focus specifically on your social media relationships. What is the best possible online life you tin imagine? This could involve, for example, feeling supported when you confront challenges in life, staying in touch with high-schoolhouse friends, having a identify to come up together in the face up of a natural disaster, or keeping your inner life alive past discovering new music or books. Think nigh what your best possible relationships would expect like for yous.
• For the adjacent 15 minutes, write continuously about what you imagined almost these all-time possible future relationships. Information technology may be easy for this exercise to pb you to focus on how things autumn short in the nowadays. For the purpose of this exercise, however, focus on the futurity—imagine a brighter future in which you are your best self and your circumstances change just enough to brand these desired social connections happen.
• This exercise is about useful when information technology is very specific—if you think about having a better online relationship with your family, for example, describe exactly what would be unlike in the ways yous chronicle to each other; if y'all'd like a better relationship with people whose politics are very different from yours, draw how they collaborate with you, what values you might share, so on. The more than specific you lot are, the more engaged you will exist in the exercise and the more y'all'll get out of it.

You might fifty-fifty consider posting your vision to social media. Don't be agape: Come across what people have to say well-nigh your ideal social media space.

2. Cultivate a diverse social network

This to me is the foundation of a salubrious life on social media.

Racial, cultural, and economic biases be — inside me, you, institutions, beyond nations, and within nations around the globe. And and so, then, so often I run across good people generalize from data they meet in their incredibly biased Facebook or Twitter feeds. I learned about the shootings in Republic of kenya, the earthquake in Nepal, the Syrian refugee crisis, and more, from Facebook. In the same feed, I also saw people write, "Why is no one paying attending to the shootings in Republic of kenya/earthquake in Nepal/the Syrian refugee crisis?!" Seemingly unaware that this isn't true of everyone or of everyone'due south social network.

It's a hard truth: Imbalance in your social media feeds doesn't reflect media bias. It reflects your bias.

To correct for this, I oft work to add friends (even ones I don't know) who I recollect will add together to the depth and richness of how I see the world. I also endeavor to be enlightened that my efforts volition always fall brusque. You tin't eliminate bias; yous can only mitigate and manage it. Over the years, I've consciously built an online social network that includes family, friends from every stage of my life, writers of all kinds, journalists, psychologists, and more—plus, people of many different races, cultures, and economical backgrounds. This variety is 1 of the gifts that life has given me, though sometimes it tin can feel like a curse—peculiarly when these different and various people start bickering on my Facebook wall.

Yep, diversity tin can create conflict. It's tempting to block or unfriend troublesome people, especially when you yourself disagree with them.

Here'southward what I call back: The difference between a well-rounded human and a one-dimensional fanatic is that the human remembers that he or she can be wrong. Of course, you should exist skeptical of everything y'all read online. But you should also try to be skeptical of yourself. When y'all feel that dopamine rush of righteousness coming on, End. Hit pause. Take a breath. Do your own research, particularly when the facts and explanations seem to confirm your pre-existing beliefs. Sometimes you lot'll mess up. I do, all the fourth dimension. Big bargain. Acknowledge you're wrong, forgive yourself, and try to do better next fourth dimension. When someone else is wrong, try to forgive them.

Multifariousness doesn't really work without humility.

3. Highlight what your friends have in common

How exercise social media turn good people into nasty ones?

Part of the answer lies in the one-dimensionality of the interaction. If someone is not personally known to you lot, they are only a proper name on the screen, and all nosotros know about them is one tweet or comment. It seems to me that ane of the reasons why Twitter is and then vicious is that followers are not bidirectional friends, the mode they are on Facebook. This makes it more than difficult for you to create and facilitate a community of different people.

I try, as much every bit possible, to show people I know what disparate friends might have in common, especially at points of conflict. "Peter and Sarah—you disagree near gun command, but did you know y'all both graduated from the University of Florida?" Or possibly, "I still love you both!"

Sounds cheesy—let's face it, most of what I'chiliad saying hither sounds cheesy—but it works in defusing tense moments. You lot're making them both feel similar they're part of the same in-grouping, and there are a stack of studies showing that this will increment the pro-social tendencies of all the parties involved.

The of import thing to remember is that your social media connections are an in-group that you created. When they comment on something you've shared, they are guests in your dwelling house. A proficient host generates a convivial atmosphere by helping everyone to feel included in the conversation.

A discussion most racism, sexism, and other forms of identity-based discrimination: I don't tolerate the denigration of entire groups of people in my networks, and I don't call up you should either. Does this contradict what I'm proverb about having a diverse network? I agree in that location's some ambiguity, simply I merely don't want, for case, women or folks of color to experience uncomfortable inside the community I create with my account. I brought them together; I endeavour to keep them rubber from abuse. You may disagree with me, of form. We all have different limits. Only this also, in my stance, is part of cultivating other people's well-being online.

4. Effort some active listening

It'due south really difficult to listen to people on social media.

In face-to-face conversation, agile listening means expressing involvement in what a person has to say. This tin be as simple as making eye contact or lightly touching their hand as they speak, but it's actually a deeper do in trying to truly empathise with another person, especially during a difficult chat. Here'southward what that might look like online, again adapted from Greater Good in Activeness:

• Paraphrase. Once the other person has finished expressing a idea, paraphrase what he or she said to brand sure you understand and to bear witness that you are paying attention. Helpful ways to paraphrase include "What I hear you saying is…" "It sounds like…" and "If I empathize you right…."
• Ask questions. When appropriate, ask questions to encourage the other person to elaborate on his or her thoughts and feelings. Avoid jumping to conclusions about what the other person means. Instead, inquire questions to analyze his or her meaning, such equally, "When you say_____, do you mean_____"?
• Express empathy. If the other person voices negative feelings, strive to validate these feelings rather than questioning or defending against them. For instance, if the speaker expresses frustration, try to consider why he or she feels that style, regardless of whether you think that feeling is justified or whether you would feel that way yourself were you in his or her position.
• Sympathise now, judge later. Your first goal should be to empathize the other person'due south perspective and have information technology for what it is, even if you lot disagree with it.
• Avoid giving advice. Problem-solving is likely to be more effective after both conversation partners understand ane another's perspective and feel heard. Moving as well rapidly into communication-giving tin can be counterproductive.

Of all the steps I'one thousand proposing, this to me feels the most difficult. On social media, we accept turns; there's no opportunity for non-exact feedback as we speak. For active listening to work online, we need more than patience, non less, than we practice in real life.

v. Promote positive messages and images

Afterwards the Paris attacks, divisive poison and fear-inducing imagery flooded my feeds. And then one of my friends shared this video, of a blindfolded Muslim man hugging strangers on a Paris street:

I felt my heart elevator. And then other friends shared this BBC video of a homo whose wife had been shot to death in Paris:

This is imagery that induces "moral pinnacle," which psychologist Jonathan Haidt defines every bit "a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human expert­ness, kindness, courage, or compassion. It makes a person want to help others and to go a better person himself or herself."

In a study published this twelvemonth, 104 college students watched videos depicting heroic or compassionate acts while researchers measured their heart rates and brain activity. They institute that witnessing suffering triggered a stress response, just that then seeing suffering alleviated through a caring, selfless act produced a sense of relief the students felt throughout their bodies. The researchers specifically saw activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with empathy and "theory of mind"—our ability to predict behavior in other people.

In short, witnessing acts of goodness helps us to feel connected to humanity, while witnessing violence cuts us off from others. Elevation helps plough the stress response from fight-or-flight into tend-and-befriend. That'due south why when friends share images that elevate me and help me to feel connected, I am grateful—and I share information technology on.

The bottom line? If nosotros want to transform the civilisation of social media, we have to prepare an intention to be supportive of each other online. Kind, compassionate, honest, grateful, and forgiving. There's a place for acrimony or snark. But that shouldn't be our default setting, specially when we communicate with people whom nosotros call friends.

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