Relationship Between Social Media/Gadgets and Empathy

This article discusses the relationship between social media/gadgets and empathy. It explores the positive impact of social media on children and teenagers, how it encourages social awareness, and increases communication power. It also discusses the negative impacts of social media on youth empathy and how parents can encourage their children to participate in social media activities.

Running head: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA/GADGETS AND EMPATHY
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA/GADGETS AND EMPATHY
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1RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA/GADGETS AND EMPATHY
Introduction:
Social media is a platform where people can express their feelings, communicate with
others and understand the perspective the way others think which is referred to as empathy. It
helps in developing a strong relationship that lasts for 3 months to 2 years. Social networking
sites allows a person to depict one true self to new people. However, if this relationship is
maintained in both online and offline, it is expected to stay forever.
Empathy can be broadly described as perceiving others pain and feelings. It is considered
as one’s ability to feel the pain after seeing the other person in pain (Gonzalez-Liencres,
Shamay-Tsoory, & Brüne, 2013). A lot of research have found that the various online
networking sites have been successful in creating such feelings in people. The above lines say
that there is strong relationship between social media and empathy, there is no need to train
children and teenagers to re-engage in the real world to increase empathy.
Discussion:
Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma conducted a research that
revealed social media to have positive impact on children. The lead author of the institute Dr.
Martin Paulus and his team conducted a research on 4,500 youngsters to know the time they
spent in front of the screen and the effect it have on their health and family life ( "Can Social
Media Be Healthy For Children?", 2018). The news showed that children between the ages of 9
to 10, who use social media, has more physical activity, less family conflict and more empathy.
Whereas, the children who use general media like television, video games and internet faces
family conflicts and less empathy. Paulus explained the reason behind this. He said that the
power of communication in social media is much more than the other general Medias (LaPadura,

2RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA/GADGETS AND EMPATHY
2015). Good communication power is directly related to empathy. A person will be able to
understand the feeling of other people only when he or she can communicate well with them.
Therefore, social media will help to increase empathy in children and teenagers. According to a
famous journal, social media influence Empathy. The children learns to feel for others from
adolescence. They also experience the same feeling like the adults when they see others in pain
(Collins, 2014). When these children are engaged in a social networking platform their empathy
power increases. They learn to express their emotions and understand others perception. When a
child reacts to the posts, status or comments with empathetic reply he/she is trying to give
comfort to that person. Empathy can be expressed in Social media like Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram through inbox messaging, wall posts status liking and so on. In addition, another
literature review on online and offline communication in children revealed that computer-
mediated communication tends to share the same feeling and emotion as that of face-to-face
communication (Harlow & Guo, 2014). It is even said that the children might convey feelings
and empathy more in online than in offline communication.
Social media helps to develop social awareness in teenagers. Social awareness is
regarded as being conscious of others hardness and pain. The various networking sites
encourages this awareness in teenagers. One example was in the last year when someone had
stolen the violin of a homeless man and a social media user posted that on Facebook asking to
help that man by giving him a violin ("The Positive Effects of Social Media On Teens", 2018).
The video went viral and helped to raise voice against that person who stole the violin. It is
depicted well the way online networking sites are encouraging teenagers to be empathetic
towards others. Extrovert teens find it easier to mingle with friends and family however, the
introverts faces a severe problem while communicating with others face-to-face. They find

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Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp to be the best platform to express their feeling and understand
others. Though they do not like to reveal themselves in front of other people however, their
reactions to the wall posts on Facebook and Instagram like ‘omg’, ‘like’, ‘love’, ‘sad’ and ‘wow’
shows their feelings towards them ("Do Today's Tech-Obsessed Teens Have Less Empathy?",
2018). They cannot express themselves however, they too feel empathetic for people. A lot of
research say that networking sites help in psychological development of adolescents and
teenagers. It showed that social media improved cognitive as well as affective empathy over
time. The teens are able to overcome emotional distress and frustrations by portraying them on
the social media platforms ("Growing Empathy in Teens", 2018).
On the other hand, a lot of research showed the negative impacts of social media on
youth empathy. Parents often complain that children are becoming unsocial and reluctant to
attend social gatherings. It affects the mental health of the teenagers. It is argued that children
who use Facebook tends to be more aggressive and depressed (Tandoc, Ferrucci, & Duffy,
2015). There are a lot of passive users who just scrolls down the news feed without even reading
them. They are quite ignorant to people feelings. They even do not try to feel the pain through
which other people are going. Friends and Facebook are the only concern for them. Online
conversation is considered non-verbal communication and therefore, it is assumed that the
teenagers might become unable to communicate face-to-face. It is said that offline
communication is the best way to portrait ones feeling. The real world empathy only comes with
face-to-face communication as revealed by some of the authors. However, every technology has
advantages as well as disadvantages. Social media has more advantages than disadvantages. The
generation Z is dependent on internet and has a positive impact on them in building empathy.
Therefore, there is no need to train the teenagers and children to improve their empathy.

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Conclusion:
From the above discussions it can be concluded that social media has a positive impact
on adolescent and teenagers. It encourages social awareness in them. They are assumed to feel
the real world empathy. The networking sites increases the communication power. The posts,
blogs and comments they write in Facebook expresses their feelings for other people. However, a
lot of people argues social media destroying the social life of children, though it is not true. It
depends on the user the way he/she wants to extract good features from the technology. Parents
should encourage them to participate in the social media activities.

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References:
Can Social Media Be Healthy For Children?. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.medicaldaily.com/can-social-media-have-health-benefits-children-424872
Collins, F. M. (2014). The relationship between social media and empathy.
Do Today's Tech-Obsessed Teens Have Less Empathy?. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.teensafe.com/blog/todays-tech-obsessed-teens-less-empathy/
Gonzalez-Liencres, C., Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Brüne, M. (2013). Towards a neuroscience of
empathy: ontogeny, phylogeny, brain mechanisms, context and
psychopathology. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(8), 1537-1548.
Growing Empathy in Teens. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.parenttoolkit.com/social-and-
emotional-development/advice/social-awareness/growing-empathy-in-teens
Harlow, S., & Guo, L. (2014). Will the revolution be tweeted or Facebooked? Using digital
communication tools in immigrant activism. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 19(3), 463-478.
LaPadura, E. (2015). Reconstructing Social Futures: Digital Voices in First-Year
Writing (Doctoral dissertation, Colorado State University. Libraries).
Tandoc, E. C., Ferrucci, P., & Duffy, M. (2015). Facebook use, envy, and depression among
college students: Is facebooking depressing? Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 139-
146.
The Positive Effects of Social Media On Teens. (2018). Retrieved from
https://igreviews.org/2017/10/positive-effects-social-media-teens/

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