Distraction and Civic Engagement

This assignment analyzes Sylvia Morelli's research on the impact of distractions, particularly electronic entertainment, on civic engagement. It explores Morelli's claim that distractions reduce empathy and hinder social connections, ultimately leading to civic disengagement. The paper examines Morelli's findings through her article, focusing on the relationship between distraction, happiness, and civic participation. It concludes by summarizing Morelli's conclusions about the neurological impact of distractions on empathy based on presented images.

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Psychology
Sylvia Morelli conducted research, and in her report, she quoted that “Being distracted
reduces our empathy for others and blunts responses in the brain.” This quote received numerous
reactions. Additionally, she noted that distractions affected people’s happiness and the manner
they contact their social lives. In her article, Morelli focused on the electronic entertainment that
has today caused civic disengagement. This paper will explore the implications of Morelli’s
quote on civic engagement and concludes the graphs presented in the article.
Civic engagement relates to making a difference in the society through the development
of skills, acquisition of knowledge and sharing of values. It aims at promoting a quality life for
people in the community through political and social institutions. However, civic engagement
has been derailed especially with the existence and development of social media and the internet.
Rather than sharing information through facilities and training, communities have resulted in
social media and online sites to gather information, most of which may not be entirely factual.
Besides, it has limited physical human interactions (England, p. 3).
According to Morelli’s quote, people are more distracted particularly in this era of
technology. Instead of sharing experiences and spending quality time with family, people are
destructed by electronic devices. However, this quote acts as a wakeup call for people. For civic

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engagement, it means that people will work towards creating a quality life. First, people are
always seeking what makes them happy. Morelli notes that distractions affect people’s
happiness. Additionally, spending time and creating memories creates a better life void of
electronic distractions. The quote suggests that people have civically disengaged and calls for
action from people in the community. Therefore, limiting distractions enhances human
connections, allows sharing of knowledge and gravitates civic engagement (Kluger, p. 4).
Conclusions
As a neurologist, Morelli included pictures in her article to show how distractions limited
empathy in people. From these images, some conclusions can be drawn. First, empathy can be
explained scientifically. In her pictures, Morelli points neural regions that depict an individual’s
empathic state (Morelli, and Lieberman, p. 3). When a person is distracted, these parts are not
stimulated and thus reduce empathy. Secondly, while the empathic process is not automatic, the
cognitive load is an inhibitor. As such, being distracted also disrupts the empathic process.
Additionally, attention impacts on neurons and induce subjective responses amid empathy. It is
from these conclusions did Morelli make her quote (Morelli, Lieberman, and Zaki, p. 59).

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Work cited
England, Julie. "Passion, Happiness, And Empathy - Prime Women Magazine." Prime Women,
2015,
https://primewomen.com/second-acts/personal-growth/passion-happiness-and-empathy/.
Kluger, Jeffrey. "The happiness of pursuit." Time Magazine (2013).
Morelli, Sylvia A., and Matthew D. Lieberman. "The role of automaticity and attention in neural
processes underlying empathy for happiness, sadness, and anxiety." Frontiers in human
neuroscience 7 (2013).
Morelli, Sylvia A., Matthew D. Lieberman, and Jamil Zaki. "The emerging study of positive
empathy." Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9.2 (2015): 57-68.