Empathy is defined as a reaction to the perceived or anticipated emotions or feelings of others. Unfortunately empathy is often viewed as a weakness within our society. Why is that?
Our society, and our overall culture, promotes focus on oneself rather than on the society as a whole.
We all have this perception that we’re super empathetic, but when it comes down to brass tax, when given the choice between doing something like community service or volunteering – we’d all much rather do our own thing, like watching Netflix or working on ‘self improvement’. We are always placing more importance on ourselves rather than on the community.
So what? What does being empathetic matter?
Well…
Empathy is what allows us to work together in groups with our peers, it allows us to develop and maintain relationships with others, and it helps us to understand social constructs. Teamwork, negotiation, and collaboration – all of these things require empathy in order to do them well and effectively.
So, while empathy is good for communities and relationships – it can also be used for things like manipulation, deceit, and self-advancement.
As the years have gone on, empathy in young adults and in children has drastically decreased. Social media, isolation and self-focus have all contributed to a lack of empathy amongst younger generations.
It’s also interesting and worth noting that as empathy has been rapidly decreasing in younger people, narcissism has been on the rise. Narcissism is often defined as an excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one's physical appearance.
This rise in narcissism can be attributed to things like social media- we’re all so concerned with our self-image and how others perceive us that we often only focus on how we’re presenting ourselves to the world. To many this can be the most important thing in their life. However, this has lead to a lack of development of social skills that are needed in order to form real connections and relationships with others. This in turn can lead to what many of can identify with – the feeling of isolation.
Technology has this desensitizing affect that we often over look the repercussions of. We don’t pick up on things like body language or other social cues through text or images. We lose that ability to identify with others – it dehumanizes us. Think about it – its much more difficult to say no to someone in person, or to hurt them.
It is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. As future, or even young parents, it is our duty to instill that sense of empathy into our children rather than instilling characteristics’ like narcissism. We as humans need to regain the sense of empathy towards others. We’re all humans; we experience the joys of life, the tragedies, the pain, the excitement, the good and the bad.
We need to remember that.
So I urge you to practice displaying a little more empathy through your day – it could make all the difference for someone.
