The disconnectedness of the virtual world has robbed us of patience and compassion

Everyone is so much nicer in person. We greet, we talk to each other courteously, we open doors for each other, let elderly people go first in queues, smile kindly at harried parents trying to quieten restless toddlers. When a person trips and falls in front of us we offer our sympathies and even rush to help them up. It’s not often that we are found screaming at each other or being rude or insulting.

Countless pieces have been written about how people tend to be less mean-spirited and are more guarded with their words when not behind a laptop or phone screen letting their fingers do the talking as they engage on social media with no real accountability. I’m not a big proponent of respectability politics as this is often practised more with the intention of policing behaviour than the pursuit of harmony and mutual understanding, but I do believe we should be courteous towards each other.

I have found, and think we can all agree, that as people we generally prefer peaceful and harmonious environments, which have been found to be more conducive to thriving as opposed to conflictual environs. This also reinforces our common humanity.

However, once people are not in each other’s immediate space a layer of civility seems to be torn away – and it seems with great relish on social media, where people quite readily insult, tear down and are deliberately mean-spirited towards each other, whether be it opposing views on a subject, an assumed superiority or inferiority or just expressing pent-up frustrations that probably have nothing to do with the targeted person.

One can only chalk this up to the impact increasing disconnectedness and overinvestment in technology is having on us. We lack the care and civility that come with feeling connected to those around us. This would explain antisocial behaviour.

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In an article published in Greater Good magazine, Christine Carter, senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Centre based at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that social connectedness is key to unlocking happiness and that the absence of this leaves you in a worse position. She argues that one of the three pervading factors of happiness is “altruism – being kind to others, even strangers – creates deep and positive relationships”.

At the very least, we have to treat each other similarly to how we would in person, where greater care and consideration are taken of each other and a sense of mutual empathy prevails.

What might be helpful is a commitment towards ensuring that we remain connected by remembering that we are all human and by treating each other with dignity even if our differences are non-negotiable.

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I’m inclined to agree with Carter in that, increasingly, kindness seems to be very hard to come by because the level and depth of relationships we experience and take part in lack a connectedness that goes further than an online “connection”.

This makes people lack the patience and compassion to go beyond a fleeting encounter on social media or the internet but really still see each other as whole people with hopes, stresses and the weight of our individual realities.

May we not surrender to the ease of disconnectedness that comes from the virtual world and robs us of our human connectedness. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.