Stephen Carrick-Davies

Online Empathy - Erosion or Evolution?

2012-07-19T05:50:14-04:00

What picture, or metaphor comes to mind, when you think of Empathy? A waiting outstretched hand, a mother stooping down to kiss a child's scraped knee, a silent long embrace at the end of a funeral service? It's different for different people because empathy by its very nature is uniquely personal. Indeed it requires a courageous leap of compassion to enter into another's personal world and imaginatively experience what that person is going through. Little wonder many of us are reluctant to go further than the sympathetic smile; true empathy involves vulnerability.

Actors and writers have always treasured the empathetic, as John Connolly writes in The Book of Lost Things, "Reading of fiction encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways, it allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being."

But you don't have to read books to consume fiction these days. Our newspapers are embellished with it, our Kindles are flickering with it, (in many Shades of Grey!) and our social networks - those places in which with we increasingly live and have our being - are syndicated streams of personal fiction. But does all this fiction and personal interaction actually lead to richer connection and a chance to demonstrate empathy? Does social networking - so much of it predicated on the quick 'boast by post', personal self-absorption - strengthen the depth and quality of our interaction or does it somehow erode and dilute our true connection and with it our ability to be truly present? Does the lack of eye contact and subtle nuances shared in face-to-face conversation create a shallowness even if we are busy on clicking the 'Like' buttons on "friends" photo or re-tweeting them so that they are trending on twitter?

Of course the question as to whether empathy can be taught or caught is an interesting one, as is the question of how social-emotional competence in children can be measured. Empathy can be expressed on a spectrum, and how a child responds to a given situation may depend on a range of different complex psychological and child development issues. For example a child on the autistic spectrum may not recognise that their online actions or behaviour may come across as inappropriately blunt. Furthermore a new emotional intelligence is required to understand meaning when it is removed from offline context.

Then there is the 'mash up' of online terms and phrases which can be problematic. Can you really be expected to show empathy to your online 'Friend' when he or she is someone who in reality you hardly know even as an acquaintance? Do we really expect depth of connection through a medium where responses are often made very quickly, sometimes anonymously and usually with a larger audience looking on? Children are growing up never having to lose a friend, but is quantity the same as quality and are relationships richer because of social networking?

Over the last 12 months I've had the privilege of working with some of the most isolated and vulnerable young people in the UK. Students who have been excluded from main stream schools and who are taught in Pupil Referral Units. The work entitled 'Munch Poke Ping' has looked at how these young learners are truly engaging with social mobile media and online games.

The work has involved running intensive workshops and film-making with the students. In the films (now being shared on YouTube) the students explore how it feels to be 'alone-together.' How they cope in their often fractured worlds and the ways in which they feel a sense of belonging and identity with online peers. Despite things going badly wrong like when they are "fraped" on Facebook, sworn at in multi-user 'Call of Duty' games, or experience the cold panic when those personal "sexting" conversations and pictures go viral, this is very much a place called home, and with the game changer - Blackberry Messenger, (BBM) - a mobile home. The identity, status, prestige and ability to influence your peers 24/7 means that a physical 'home' is just a concept for some!

On the last assignment I asked some of the students who they turn to when things go wrong online ? Would they turn to teachers, parents, cousins, police, Childline ? "No way!" came the almost unanimous response. "We'd only be able to turn to our mates, they're the only ones who understand and who could help." No loss of empathy there then!

Young actors in the latest 'Munch Poke Ping' film exploring how to cope online

These brave youngsters live in a parallel universe, one which now exists largely because of mobile technology. Even at night, sleep is an optional extra for those who crave constant connection with their peers. As one young student told me, "I go to sleep when my pinger's gone to sleep."

So back to the empathy question? Perhaps empathy and the way we show it is evolving. There are important developments which seem to reflect a broader empathetic movement. A sort of "kindness of the crowds". For example the inspirational www.itgetsbetter.org website which was created in response to a number of students taking their own lives after being bullied in school in 2010 has today become a worldwide movement inspiring hope for LGBT young people facing harassment, and more than 50,000 user-created videos have been viewed more than 50 million times.

Other sites such as http://operationbeautiful.com/which has as its strap line "Transforming the way you see yourself one Post-it note at a time" is a simple idea to create a way for young people to treasure what's beautiful offline and share it and inspire others online. The cynic might say that these initiatives are two inches thick and 100 miles wide and perhaps quantity is the trade off for quality and mass communication the exchange for deep personal friendship and intimacy. Nevertheless those in the digital diaspora who are isolated, victimised or whose battery life is low, can be enormous and for the isolated or vulnerable child, the recognition that someone has shown a 'like' or responded to a comment can change their world - if only for a Facebook moment.

I'm sure that there are very real ways in which the online anonymity and pranking around can erode empathy, but let's not exaggerate or simply blame the technology. It so depends on the individual and their values. For every example of the way in which empathetic expression is diluted I have found examples where young people in particular are using the technology in considerate, compassionate ways. As I say to students when I work with them in schools "What would Martin Luther King Jr. have done if he had had a Facebook account?"

We as adults need to start showing a bit of more empathy and understanding to the thumb generation. These skilled multi-tasker and multi-platform hoppers. We need to be empathetic and truly appreciate the irresistible pull to mobile networking and the new social location tools that these young people are exploiting and better understand the way they are transforming relationships and changing our understanding of empathetic behaviour.

Those working with vulnerable young people urgently need hands-on practical training to understand the 'grammar' and privacy issues of BBM and Facebook. They need greater support so that they can have the courage to renegotiate their professional practice and pilot new models of engagement without fear mongers constantly harking back to a bygone age. The PRUs I worked in were realising that simply banning mobile phones and social networking (as the Government seems to be currently advising schools) creates an arms race and ultimately an "unwinnable war". It is we adults who have dangled these powerful shiny tools in front of our youth. It is the United Nations who have just declared that Internet access and online freedom of expression are a basic human right!

I believe most young people today are just as caring, talented, courageous and sensitive to others as we were when we were young. Indeed they have greater potential to connect and act empathetically, especially when they see and experience the painfully opposite; the casual cruelty, bullying, greed and double standards. The paradox is that whilst the technology connects, it also amplifies the self-importance, narcissism, egotism, vanity, conceit. It's this and the pure selfishness which kills empathy and compassion, now where in the offline world have we seen that recently?

Stephen Carrick-Davies is a child advocate, writer and social entrepreneur.
See www.munchpokeping.com

Empathy Download

2012-05-24T19:00:00-04:00

The findings from a study published last week which found that "more than half of the UK population claim to be contemplating revenge and that social networks are the preferred platform for getting even," should not come as any surprise, especially to those who constantly live their lives online.

What did we do before Facebook and Twitter? Were we more tolerant and polite or perhaps just more repressed? Yes these platforms have made it easier and quicker to settle scores, but do these new online tools actually fuel people's thirst for revenge? The 'boast by post' status updates, vanity tools, have made confrontation and getting even easier, (especially if you hide behind anonymity), but it can be more subtle than that, many have now made slippery sarcasm an art form.

They not just hide behind the screen, but behind the "it was just a bit of fun" excuse for downright cruelty. Funny it may be to them but it can cause distress and lead to a cycle of further recriminations, exposure and , paradoxically - with so many 'friends' - the feeling of being cut off and abandoned. Interesting to note than that the same study found that 14% of the 18 to 24-year-olds questioned said they would be more offended if someone "defriended" them on Facebook than if they stopped speaking to them. Being a member of an anti-social network can be a lonely experience.

The question about how our offline world affects us is a contentious issue. When I asked a group of excluded young people last month about what was the worst thing about being online, it wasn't the fear of predators or identity theft, it was "When the French come online and start swearing at us" (a reference to the interaction of playing Call of Duty over an internet game console). It wasn't the fantasy violence but the personal insults. It was the personal rejection which can really kill!

Most young people I talk to are able to distinguish between fantasy violence and real life action but we mustn't generalise as the internet I believe, can amplify certain offline vulnerabilities. Even for those most hardened.

One staff member explained. "Many of the excluded young people that I work with play adult computer games. Although they may be 14 years of age some of them have an emotional development age of a seven-year-old, so playing an 18 rated game is a real jump for these kids. When I was seven years old, I loved playing WW2 games we'd shoot each other and have to play dead, but of course we knew it wasn't real and could get up again! It's really important for us to similarly contextualise and not exaggerate the impact of the fantasy violence in these games, but perhaps focus more on the conversations, the promotion of criminality, abuse and sexist messages which many of these games promote. I don't think many teachers are aware of these aspects of the games"

Students and Staff from The Bridge Academy in West London share how they feel about online games.

If we really want to care about online influences and behaviour and stem the tide of casual cruelty, anti-social behaviour and glamorisation of violence, we can't simply blame the tools or new interactive social media and games. No, what we need is to start to creatively rekindle our understanding of empathy for a connected e-world. You can't download this as a plug-in, or a patch, Just as a programme like "Roots of Empathy" introduced a live baby to help children re-connect and gain an empathetic understanding and connect with their feelings so we now need a new understanding, a new "e-pathy" to remind us of our humanity and curb the actions of many internet users who risk becoming "comfortably numb."

Being kind can be cool, we as adults need to remember this and model it in what we do online today. The amazing new platforms which enable us to connect must not be used to create greater divisions, mistrust, pain and resentment. Getting even may be a human trait but let's not make it a sport.

Stephen Carrick-Davies is an independent E-safety advocate, social entrepreneur and writer. His recent film with excluded young people explores the issues of under-age use of online games see www.munchpokeping.com

Gaga's Born This Way Foundation: Are We Born To be Brave?

2012-03-05T04:51:54-05:00

The Sander's Theatre Memorial Hall at Harvard University is a beautiful ancient cathedral to learning. In its time it has hosted a range of great orators who have tested the hall's outstanding acoustics; Winston Churchill, Theordore Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr. all movement-makers in their time, all brave men who spoke to the challenges of their day.

How refreshing then to hear that a woman, the high princess of pop, Lady Gaga no less was coming to this hallowed institution to launch her 'Born This Way Foundation' (BTWF).

But as I was ushered through tight security guards into the warmth of this sacred hall, I found it hard to leave my scepticism outside in the street, where cold slushy snow was falling on the young fans who had been lining up for hours. Was this a higher form of merchandising? Fans - you've bought the album, live ticket show, poster, T shirt and cuddly toy... now join the movement and btw donate online to the Born This Way Foundation?

But there was no hard sell, no fancy staging, lighting or pyrotechnics on the bare wooden stage. This was an unplugged event like no other, as first Oprah Winfrey and then Lady Gaga's mother, Cynthia Germanotta, and lastly - to rapturous applause - the 25-year-old Lady Gaga herself appeared. Three of the most influential women on the planet, had gathered to launch the BTW Foundation and talk about love, kindness, bravery, and acceptance. I was being won over; I was connecting with my feminine side.

The BTWF has been established to "foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated, helping to connect young people with the skills and opportunities they need to build a braver, kinder world." Although a powerful advocate of anti-bullying, Lady Gaga insisted that the Foundation was not an anti-bullying initiative, but more a movement to empower young people and inspire bravery.

"I believe that if you have revolutionary potential you must make the world a better place and use it" she said, seated elegantly in a chair talking to Oprah. "We have to understand what breeds hatred, what breeds anger and what are the signs that a youth empowered individual can pick up on... I want to make it cool to be the kid who says 'something's not right'". Lennon and Yoko Ono inspired a generation to embrace Peace, she told the now euphoric congregation.

She was now initiating a similar movement and was committed to inspiring youth to love more, to be brave and stand up for others, resisting the urge to engage in the casual cruelty and meanness so often expressed in the digital world. This was more than a sermon; this was becoming a rallying cry.

Earlier that day I had joined 90 experts from around the world to attend a Symposium on Youth Meanness and Cruelty brought together by the BTWF and The Berkman Centre for Internet & Society. Thankfully we were joined by a real group of experts - ten extraordinarily brave young people who were developing the kind of projects which the Foundation seeks to promote.

Sharing stories of starting up school chapters to combat bullying, asking teachers for meetings at which they could share about how it felt to be bullied for being gay, how - with no one else to help them - they had to turn to each other for support as they endured the "casual cruelty" and meanness online and in the playground. These are the kind of projects which the Foundation seeks to promote. Together our job was to help frame some of the work of what I feel is a new hybrid organisation; grounded in academic research, executed using political campaign tactics and deployed with the passion and reach of one of the most influential figures in the world.

As I travelled to Boston I had pondered on the seeming contradiction: How can the world's most powerful, edgy, female performance pop icon, really impact the lives of the often damaged, marginalised and bullied youth with integrity and authenticity?

Working as I do with some of the excluded young people (albeit 6,000 miles away in down-town London), I asked my young experts back home what questions I should put to their idol? They replied by texting "Did you always want to be a celebrity and are you comfortable in the public eye?" "Have you read Pigeon English - a book inspired by the story of Damiola Taylor?", as well as the simplest of questions, which was the one I put to Lady Gaga's mother Cynthia Germanotta "What was Lady Gaga's school life like?"

She explained that as a child Lady Gaga had been a good student, getting involved in sport and going to summer camp. However, her enormous drive to create and perform her music became a conflict for her, especially when she wanted to write music while her friends were out playing and found that they didn't understand her. When the isolation and bullying started her teachers didn't see it. Her difference was what set her apart. Is it any wonder then that a central thrust of the Foundation's work will be on helping create safe spaces for young people to explore their identity and difference, and then be skilled up and given opportunities to become modern-day warriors for a braver, kinder world?

My scepticism was thawing as Lady Gaga then took the stand to testify before a panel of expert "judges" who questioned her more about the hopes of the BTWF. It's not just any old celebrity who can go head to head with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, the Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, Psychologist Susan M. Swearer, LGBT parent, David Burtka and Alyssa Rodemeyer, the sister of Jamey Rodemeyer who took his life after being bullied for being gay.

This was no staged Q&A and it soon became clear that Lady Gaga is no push over. Responding to a question from one of the young people about the best way to teach students how to be brave, Susan Swearer explained that she felt that training for parents and teachers was vital. However in her now familiarly direct manner Lady Gaga said "I don't think that works. I don't know that teachers even give a shit some of them, (not the ones in this room obviously), what I want is for Alyssa and other youth like her to intervene. It's not that I don't think parents and teachers aren't capable, it's just that we've been talking about this for so long and it's not working"

Of course many school leaders and parents may have genuine questions about how someone whose often provocative videos containing overtly sexual and violent images, and convey mixed messages about body image and disability can be a suitable spokesperson for a kinder, gentler world. But it seems her millions of fans (20 million of which follow her on Twitter) can separate the performance and the persona from the gentle, articulate, genuine young leader, for them her overarching message of bravery and respect comes through. "I truly believe I have so many followers on Twitter because I say nice stuff... I get a tremendous amount of hateful messages but I don't talk about these why give them energy ?" she explained to the audience.

In a week when three children have been shot in another US school shooting by a fellow pupil, America needs its youth to be brave. Whether you are born this way, I'm not sure. Many of the children I work with aren't, it is often a cruel society and the abandonment by adults that they have to struggle with.

As the launch began to close Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia held hands and thanked people for being here. Her words "We can't do this on our own we need everyone" were echoing in my head as her highly supportive mother continued to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. "We always taught our children to give something back she had told me earlier," One may be Born to be Brave but remaining brave has so much to do with older role models and mothers in particular.

Find out more about the BTWF at www.bornthiswayfoundation.org

Stephen's films with excluded young people can be seen at www.munchpokeping.com

Safer Internet Day and Fraping: He Who Filches From Me My Good Name...

2012-02-07T05:40:00-05:00

Today is SID: Safer Internet Day (SID) for those not in the know. An annual event organised by the EU to remind us that it's good to be safe online. Of course if so many of the other online days of the year weren't so unsafe, we wouldn't need a special day to remind us of the importance of keeping safe.

However, one of the challenges is that those who are targeted by this initiative - largely children and young people - can have a very different view from us adults about what being safe is. Part of growing up involves pushing the boundaries and differentiating oneself from digital dinosaurs. Telling a teenager to be safe, or NEVER do something, can have unintended consequences. Remember why banned pop records usually went to No1?

Many young people I work with feel empowered and invincible online. They are up for handling themselves and using the tools and privacy settings to protect their prized identity and reputation. When I go into secondary schools to talk about digital literacy (a broader, more appropriate term than 'e-safety') I'm often asked by the pupils, "Are you here to talk to us about paedos, Sir?" "We know how to spot a perv" they tell me without a quiver of hesitation.

My sense is that there's a lot more self-censorship and looking out for one another amongst young people online than we give them credit for. Indeed the evidence suggests that when young people are told about the risks in a rational and balanced way they are capable of keeping safe. Of course there are always those who aren't and one of the most important tasks is to better target those who work with vulnerable young people to show them how the internet can amplify vulnerability. Furthermore it's not just YP who need to be helped to stay safe online, I know many adults who are extremely conservative offline, but reckless online; but that's another story!

For many young people the only way to make sense of the risks online is to contextualise them in their own culture of humour, slang and hidden codes. Remember the dreadful term for assault "happy slapping'? Now it's "Fraping" a combination of the words "Facebook" and "rape" to describe when a 'friend' jumps on your Facebook account and sends inappropriate updates and posts to your friends purporting to be you.

For these young people, this casual cruelty is a much more an immediate threat than online predators. Then there's the term (and app) for 'Munching' when text or images are captured on a mobile phone screen to be forwarded or broadcast to all through BBM. It's not just the new apps or terminology that is lost on parents, most are unaware that these new peer activities are wrecking teenager relationships and have massive psychological re-percussions. Teenage years are hard enough as they are without this added pressure of online mistrust and reputation assignation. When you have very little in your life, your public reputation is everything.

It's good then that this year's SID theme is 'connecting generations and educating each other'. However if we adults are serious about bridging the so-called 'Digital Divide' we need to have more than just one day's focus. It's not the theory we need, it's the hands-on practical help and an empathetic understanding of the contradictions of growing up online. Many teenagers now care more about their online profiles than their offline personas. Andy Warhol was spot on when he said "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes", it's just that he should have added "...every day!"

Getting to grips with language and meaning is vital, even when it can seem shocking, inappropriate and even devaluing to our own understanding of terms. For example, is it right to use a word like 'Fraping' if it somehow trivialise the violation of physical rape?

Very few of us parents ever say to our kids as they leave home in the morning; "Good luck out there, take some risks and learn to handle yourself in the big bad world!" Or the equivalent of "break a leg" as they go on stage! Indeed, for many young people the internet has truly meant that "all the world's a stage", and to paraphrase the Bard a stage where 'all are merely players: who have their exits and their entrances; their posts, pokes and friend's lists and in time play many parts.'

Who's This? from Julian Parmiter on Vimeo.

Teenagers don't want to be told to 'be safe' in an abstract way. We can't expect them to simply access a sanitised world filtered by through a school filter. What preparation for the outside world is that? You can't teach kids to swim without a swimming pool. No, young people need respect from us for being able to navigate risk. They need help to recognise where the risks can lead to real harm, support to become more emotionally resilient to the meanness which is present in all walks of life, and perhaps most importantly, inspired to be leaders in their online worlds, to ensure that anti-social networking isn't the new craze. The paradox is that they don't see many of us adults modelling this. Perhaps that's the most significant risk!

In a week when Mark Zuckerberg has floated Facebook - the 21st century digital equivalent of the Globe Theatre - onto the stock exchange, perhaps it's apt to close with an earlier reflection from the Bard about the Elizabethan equivalent of 'Fraping.'

"Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed." William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3 scene 3.

Stephen Carrick-Davies is an independent E-safety consultant, social entrepreneur and writer. His recent film with YP which explores the issue of 'Fraping' and which is funded by the Nominet Trust can be seen at www.munchpokeping.com