"Social Media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it"
- Mike Tyson
If you open the comments section of any Instagram post, you will be greeted with an astonishing display of racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and in some cases, even pedophilia. It would be horrifying to any person with even a remnant of conscience. Still, it seems that to the average Instagram commentor, to say the vilest things one can is as normal as just about anything else in their life. Similarly, opinions run rampant on platforms like Reddit and X (formerly known as Twitter). Opinions that differ from one's own must be treated with hostility and may even warrant death threats. The question we ask is why is this happening? Is cruelty in the genetic code of humans? And what is the solution?
The most obvious cause for this lack of morality, and echoing the Mike Tyson quote from earlier, is the fact that social media tends to depersonalize personal interactions. It makes people forget that the hateful comment they leave on someone's profile is going to another human being, someone with thoughts, feelings, and lives. Many of the people who leave such comments wouldn't ever say something mean or heinous in their real life, but the anonymity and the shield that the internet provides emboldens them to say things they normally would not. The mask of facelessness takes away the personal aspect of communication by not letting people see the direct impact of their words on another person.
Social media also serves to alienate groups that disagree with you. All social media rely on some form of algorithm to serve up content. They map what a user's interests and passions are over a period of time and then show them similar things. This may be okay for funny cat videos and memes but when it comes to political content, it can become dangerous. An important facet of the democratic process is the exposure to differing opinions and engaging with them in a civil manner. When one is only exposed to opinions that are similar to one's own, it creates an echo chamber. This echo chamber leads to an othering of people with opinions that differ even slightly from theirs and a groupthink that encourages them to not think of them as people, but as an opposition that must be annihilated.
Combining these two factors, the anonymity of social media and the alienation of others leads to an attitude towards people that discourages dialogue and encourages humiliation and bullying. Left-leaning accounts are often faced with copious amounts of sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and more.
Multiple studies have been done on how social media is reducing people's attention spans. We are bombarded with minute-long audio-visual smorgasbords of stimuli in the form of Reels, TikToks, Shorts, and more. We watch one video and before our brains even have time to process it, our fingers make the swiping up motion to move on to the next bit of content that would fire up and reward our dopamine centers. We will see an ad for a clothing brand in one minute, a video of atrocities being committed in a warzone in the next, a funny video about cats the minute after, and so on.
A large part of the public opposition to the Vietnam War was the fact that for the first time in history, advancements in technology had made it easier for the war to be televised in the US. People saw atrocities on a hitherto unseen scale, and they saw it in an unfiltered and raw manner. These people were also not badgered with a number of other stimuli competing for their interest, thus allowing them to reflect upon these horrible happenings upon their fellow human beings. Today, ease of access to technology has made us aware of a large number of atrocities going on around the world as a part of major conflicts. Even besides conflicts, we are more aware of poverty, hunger, and illnesses in various parts of the world. However, because of the algorithmic nature of social media, they aren't presented to us in a way that gives us space to think about and reflect upon these things. Instead, we feel obliged to care about everything as our empathy is mindlessly tugged in all directions. As a result of this, we are not able to care about any one particular thing, and in our attempt to care about one thing end up not caring about anything.
Another effect of this constant tug of war for our attention is that one would opt out of looking at conflict as a whole altogether. An understandable response to being exposed to this constant stream of misery would be choosing not to engage in such conflict. This leads to people simply not looking at actual human rights violations, leading to them not caring about various problems with the world. While that is good for people on an individual level if a large number of people choose to not engage with this, it can allow for the perpetuation of atrocities across the world. Social media makes making morally conscious a harder task that requires a lot of mental energy and something that one feels obliged to be, rather than something that emerges out of the natural compassion we have for our fellow human beings.
And these aren't victimless crimes. Words said online do affect the person sitting behind the computer screen. In December 2023, Pranshu, a 16-year-old queer person from Kerala, with the dream of becoming a make-up artist unfortunately ended their life after facing over 4,000 bullying comments on a video they posted where they wore a saree. Things don't look any better either, as such cases of horrific violence are met with indifference and even celebration from these online trolls. Regardless of one's political affiliation, loss of life is a tragic occurrence and must be met with quiet reflection.
The word 'troll' has entered our daily vocabulary. It refers to someone who leaves an intentionally offensive message on the internet, to upset someone or for attention. In other words, a troll is a bully. The word comes from Norse mythology and refers to beings that live isolated in caves and mountains, and away from society, with their interactions with humankind being destructive and anti-human. Make no mistake, online trolls are also anti-human. They have no care for human life because the only way they get most of their human interaction is through the filter of a screen, causing them to be insensitive and very depersonal.
It would be easy to assume that being cruel to others is hardwired within humans. After all, if fewer people are competing for resources, then it would be beneficial for people to inflict cruelty upon others to ensure more for themselves. However, evidence suggests that this is not the case. In the early days of humanity, there was an emphasis on groups and conformity to said groups to ensure the survival of the species. People would often have to tolerate even those they dislike to ensure harmony within the group. A case I keep returning to is that of a nearly two million-year-old fossil discovered in the Republic of Georgia. This fossil was the skull and jawbone of an adult male hominid who only had one tooth. The evidence suggests that the person had lost his tooth many years before his death. Around this fossil, tools were found that would have assisted in eating softer materials. This gathering could not have been done alone. This shows that even millions of years ago, before any semblance of society or social structure, someone cared about this person, who was unable to take care of himself, enough to spend time and resources to help them survive.
Kindness, not cruelty is hardwired in humans. We tend to care for our weak, elders, and young ones, and we go out of our way to help others. A new trend, dubbed the 'Starman trend', on social media shows CCTV footage of people going out of their way to help others, be it saving their life from an accident or simply giving them some food, all scored to David Bowie's song Starman (hence the name). It would serve us all well to remind ourselves that we are all humans, regardless of our political beliefs, sexuality, gender identity, and more, that we must coexist on this planet and help it get better and better. There is a starman, waiting in the sky and he'd like to come and meet us but he thinks it would blow our minds, and he's told us not to blow it, cause he knows it's all worthwhile. Be kind, both online and offline.
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