Envisioning Web Empathy
Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it.- Max Frisch
I write this post out of real concern for all of us living our lives out online. In it, I'm talking about what happens when we allow technology to interfere with developing empathy for another human being. I don't offer any simple solutions because I don't think this is an easy fix, but I do think the question needs exploring.
Influence v Empathy
What would you do to be seen as an Influencer?
It's the hot button right now in the circles I play in. Would you endorse a product you actually hate? Would you publicly belittle a company to make your own "brand" appear superior? Would you pretend to be someone you aren't?
What price would you pay to be an Influencer?
An Influencer isn't necessarily the person with the most page views per month. She might be the person with a lot of Twitter followers. Or he may have a very highly focused message that reaches a small, but influential, group of people. A person can become an Influencer overnight by blowing a whistle, alerting the public about a security issue in an application, launching a project that changes the online landscape. The problem comes when we get so focused on pumping ourselves up that we forget the very things that make us human.
In the race for numbers are we forgetting to cultivate empathy?
Watering Angry Seeds
The Chicago Tribune last week ran a story about a woman who claimed she was pregnant with a terminally ill baby. For months she wove her story. The lie was revealed when she gave birth to a baby that wasn't alive. In fact, the baby was a doll. A commenter realized it - she has the same doll in her home. That's when the story unraveled.
I recently had a conversation with a business owner who said that even though they know he is accessible and customer-service oriented (he answers his tweets and emails promptly), one of his customers used Twitter to voice a minor complaint. The complaint was passed around the web.
The catch was that the customer was in the same room as the business owner at the time. The complaint could have been made in person, the problem fixed. But because the customer made a stink about it in the online world, the reputation of the business was put on the line.
More and more people are taking their grievances out online without even trying the traditional avenues of redress.
The Power of a Tiny Lie on the Web
A blogger's misunderstanding propagated across the web led United Airlines stock to drop in price by 75%in September 2008.And while that was an extreme case, this type of misinformation is happening now on a smaller scale, across the web. You may satisfy 98 out of 100 customers but the two who are dissatisfied and post about their experience on the web can have a greater impact than ever before. One or two customers saying they are disappointed in your service add up. Fact checking (in person, when you can), telling the truth and empathizing with a person or group of people leads to compassion on the web.
Developing the Capacity for Empathy on the Web
Spend your time cultivating the seeds you want to see grown. Rather than insulating yourself in the cloak of technology (or using the technology to ambush a brand, a company or another human being) practice using it to uplift.
This social media wave will pass. What do you want to be remembered for when it does? What do you want your company to be remembered for?
I'll finish with an excerpt from Piero Ferrucci's, The Power of Kindness:
If this capacity [for empathy] does not develop sufficiently or if it is thwarted, we are in trouble. If we are insensitive to the emotions of others, each relationship becomes an impossible charade. And if we see others not as living subjects but as things, on par with a refrigerator or a street lamp, we allow ourselves to manipulate and even to violate them. When instead empathy is fully developed, our existence is immeasurably richer and more varied. We are able to step out of our selves and enter into the lives of others. Relationships then become a source of interest, of emotional and spiritual nourishment.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Reader Comments (13)
Yep, posts like this are why you are so well loved & respected everywhere you go.
{claps wildly}
Well done!
I think this is such an important idea---I feel like so many grievances, both personal and business related are now aired online, and usually cloaked in a passive-aggressive "joking" style, kept "without names" or anonymous. I think it says a lot about how people communicate in general. I'm not saying I've never done it, but I think it's such a good thing to keep in mind. The old adage applies even online, "If you can say (blog, tweet, etc.) something nice, don't say anything at all."
Great insights Gwen. It's great to bring these ideas to light though those few idiot bad apples will still be troublemakers online and offline because it's how they try to build self esteem.
Gwen,
Timely, thoughtful post. I've seen the trigger-happy results of effortless social media interactions (shotgun blasts?) as well. Even though it can seem like more effort, the outcomes are always more real (and lasting) if we simple _talk_ with one another, as directly as possible, and in as small a circle as necessary, as soon as possible.
I'm a product manager - this role rarely has direct authority, only authority by credibility and persuasion. I find that I am always better at my job when I have the empathy dial on high. In fact, I am working to weave empathy into my approach to product management more deliberately, by really getting to know people in other roles (however distantly related to mine), what their motivations, likes, dislikes, and fears are.
Oh yes. Well said.
Sometimes the internet causes us to lose sight of the real people at the other end of the computer and I"m just as guilty of non-empathetic behaviour. I think that for myself, I try to reflect on what I've typed and step into the shoes of the other person it's directed at - or even further, the whole community's shoes (Twitter is a whole heckload of shoes!)
It reminds me a bit of the Book of 5's from a Buddhist book I read, where you are suggested to keep a journal with the 5 things you look back on at the end of the day that had a positive impact or were good as well as the 5 things that you were ashamed of or didn't feel so cool about. I need to open up a Book of 5's in Notepad or on Evernote!!!
Thanks for posting this Gwen. I think this reality check is needed quite often.
"Fact checking (in person, when you can), telling the truth and empathizing with a person or group of people leads to compassion on the web."
So true Gwen. My agency made it on the front page of Digg late last year, in part due to one of the most influential people on the web not bothering to fact check with us prior to posting his opinion on video. The haters came out in full force over a period of two solid days. In the end, it all came out ok -- but we saw the unleashing of premature conclusions like never before.
Thanks Gwen. Empathy for all, all day long, everywhere on earth. Yay. Hard skill to learn though eh? I've rarely met folks (inc me as you know...) who even know *how to empathize (different from sympathize, collude or reinforce the reactivity) in a way that can shift the scene off of extreme frustration and discouragement when it gets to that level. Starts with being able to do self empathy it seems, before it reaches the pitch point of hurling critiques vast and wide. But most times even that is hard to remember to (or know how to) do.
I think it would really help to have customer service employees trained in the refined skills of empathy which can calm the situation rather than coming back with defense and denial ...which in my opinion ...only feeds the fires of reactivity. I suppose they fear 'liability' issues if they empathize too much though?
Is it possible to land empathy in 40 digits or less?...I think so. So I say...let's empathize also with the 'bad apples' themselves who are making 'trouble' ....they seem to be screamin out for empathy too. I once heard a person (MR) say that everything out of anyone's mouth on basic level is a 'please' or a 'thank you' ....sounds a bit simple and hard to fathom..but might be true. He also said "don't listen to the actual words of anyone who is screamin..you won't live long..listen to what is alive in them and what they are really longing or hopin for under the rant.....and respond to that." I must report..if I remember to do this..it works.
Thanks for the reminder!
very well stated. many great points. i hope this propagates across the web!
Alli: Thanks for stopping by, lady! You keep it ultra classy & I adore that about your work on the web.
Amy: I think you're right that the medium doesn't matter, the message is the same. Cultivating empathy is harder work than airing a constant stream of grievances.
Brett: I DM'd this message to ya, but I'll say it here, too: sometimes I am the idiot bad apple. Developing compassion for ourselves is just as hard (if not harder) than developing that compassion for others. KWIM?
Trevor: If I needed a project manager, I would want him/her to be like you.
Tanya: Book of 5. I need to start a non-digital version of that. For sure.
Jason: I'm sorry to hear about that experience. It is amazing how quickly we jump on board without fact checking. I know I'm guilty of writing things that turned out to be not completely true. I then learned about the importance of adding EDIT to the top of the post, crediting the person who points out the mistake and making the hard choice to swallow my pride. It sucks, right? But I learned a big lesson in doing that. (As a result, an average post takes at least four hours for me to make live on this site.) Editing, fact checking, tightening things up. It's just what we have to do to take care of our readers.
Kate: You are always teaching me something. Your comment is a better reminder than this post. I need to re-read that book and post that list of words on the wall. You're right about self empathy. I have to work constantly on both. It's a work-in-progress. Always. Thank you for the reminder.
Michele: May it be so.
Great post Gwen, a substantive topic truly in need of discussion. I was just marveling this past weekend over the vilification of a woman on the website of our local paper. All of the nasty comments were, of course, anonymous. I'm of the opinion that if you do have an opinion, good or bad, you should own that opinion and even be willing to express it face to face, most especially when it is a criticism. As it is on the web, folks are just triggers for one another's pent up anger and resentments, which are then projected out into the virtual often in a kind of nasty amplification process. Beliefs (views) are transgressed and there are those who seem all to ready to pounce.
Without getting into a lengthy thesis on possible difference between empathy and compassion, I will say that to the extent that we are able to feel the suffering of another through the written word over the internet, we must take pause and imagine ourselves in that person's shoes because we can't actually feel their suffering as we would if in their presence. I think this distinction is self evident. And in that pause also, one must acknowledge the inevitable sacrifice of truth to the infinite holes in the story and the incomplete and skewed interpretations that result.
But we tend to want to choose sides in our vain attempts at certainty. True compassion seems to come from an understanding of the Big misunderstanding from which all others flow: that we have distinct and lasting selves, each separate from another. Empathy is a bodily tool that clues us into that fact; it is the suffering of another felt in one's own body. Not sure this travels through my DSL line.
Devin: Thank you for sharing this. I'm sitting in a cafe right now with no fewer than a dozen laptops open, being typed into. If compassion and empathy can't travel through your DSL we're in trouble, aren't we?
You say, "But we tend to want to choose sides in our vain attempts at certainty," and it's so true. Isn't it funny that in a world where information flows faster than ever before, changing right before our eyes, that we still continue to hang on to our fixed notions of the world/self/other? It really is the human condition.
You work in this space, how do you encourage those with whom you work to develop empathy? And why can't those same tactics be applied to the web? They have to be applied to the web - that's where we are, that's where we're going.
Gwen, to your first question, "how do you encourage those with whom you work to develop empathy?" Kate said it already, which is that it starts with one's self. And this requires self reflection and quiet contemplation in my view, which seems to be increasingly uncommon. And, I think this disappearance of true alone contemplative time, particularly with the generation that has grown up with the internet, is in part due to, somewhat ironically, digital connectivity.
And with regard to applying empathy to the web, what I was trying to say was that I believe empathy is a very basic bodily response to suffering that requires physical presence with the sufferer. And this is one of the essences of the psychotherapeutic relationship. Compassion principles on the other hand can be applied to the web in my view. But, it might be considered a discipline or practice. And this brings it back to contemplation, to know one's own suffering intimately such that one can more readily recognize the psychological symptoms of another's suffering. And this is all the more important when all you have to go on are the words someone writes and puts out on the internet. So first you have to cultivate this compassionate predisposition. And here again, Kate's post mentioned this in saying, "...let's empathize also with the 'bad apples' themselves who are making 'trouble' ....they seem to be screamin out for empathy too." This is a profound statement because it points to the universality of suffering. This kind of understanding can only come from delving deeply into one's own bad apple, those parts of the self, which we often try to ignore or hide. And this is exactly what the "bad apples" are often doing in their harsh commentary online; they are hiding from that which they have judged "bad" in themselves by projecting their own shadows onto others because they've not come to accept these things about themsleves. And one can see how this projection is a kind of inverse proof if you will; the rule being that suffering and salvation begin and end with the small self, the ego self.
Finally, the web does offer us a great potential in speaking to and cultivating the larger Self, the universal Self and fostering the collective consciousness. But it cannot be a substitute for physical connection. And to use it towards cultivating our collective potential absolutely requires personal contemplation and development. So here are some questions: How to foster in person social interaction with technology? How to establish and instill compassionate communication norms? How to use technology to foster contemplation and personal development?
Thanks again for starting such a valuable thread.
Perfect Post, Gwen!!!!