Compassion Fatigue

The ease of accessing a wide audience can lead to complete ‘compassion fatigue’ or create hundreds of false benefactors who, by pressing ‘likes’ on social media, live with the idea that they have done their good deed and can sleep in peace.

WRITTEN BY SANDRA BABIĆ

Young starlet Kim Kardashian and her ‘celebrity’ colleagues Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, and several others have proven their social sensitivity. They boldly laid their made-up bodies in coffins, conducted a photoshoot, and declared a digital death for the purposes of a humanitarian campaign. Dear readers, the mentioned ladies will not release a single ‘tweet’ until a million dollars is raised to fight AIDS under the apocalyptic name ‘Keep a Child Alive’. They thought that their fans would be pulling their hair out because they would be deprived of trivial details from their colorful lives. However, they were mistaken. The campaign took an unexpected turn and completely underperformed. In the first three days, they managed to raise only about 200 thousand dollars, which is a mere pittance considering that the stars have tens of millions of fans whose eyes are glued to their profiles on Twitter and Facebook. And while some may maliciously comment that they would pay just to see their digital death continue, the failed campaign sheds entirely new light on the effectiveness of the internet, especially social networks, when it comes to social engagement.

The Internet as a Help
And while on one hand, the internet is a very useful tool for connecting idle rich people from Croatia with the poor from Cambodia, the inflation of campaigns for this or that socially beneficial goal can ultimately trivialize them completely. Moreover, the paradox is that the ease of accessing a wide audience can completely overwhelm, cause total ‘compassion fatigue’, or create hundreds of false benefactors who, by pressing ‘likes’ on social media, live with the idea that they have done their good deed and can sleep in peace. But do not misunderstand me, modern media, primarily the virtual world, offers countless opportunities, but we should not ignore those negative phenomena that loom on the horizon. If you were to ask Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith, authors of the book ‘The Dragonfly Effect’, social networks can indeed spur social change, as confirmed by a plethora of examples from global practice that have brought good. Of course, there are such cases in the land of Croats as well. For instance, there is currently a campaign on Facebook called ‘Step into Life’ which aims to collect aid for orphaned children by having each new member of their group donate one kuna. So, you can be sure that someone will donate one kuna just because you clicked with your mouse. Simple, right? However, on the other hand, there are hundreds of stupid campaigns whose purpose is to raise social awareness, but which actually result in the complete trivialization of the problem.

I Like, Therefore I Am Good
Recently, women have been informing their friends on Facebook about the color of their bras through their statuses, all to remind the virtual environment of the fight against breast cancer. It seems to me that this campaign has actually turned into a competition of so-called creativity in choosing underwear and igniting the imagination of the male population. Who actually cares? And has any woman really scheduled a mammogram after discovering that her colleague at work wears a pink polka-dotted bra? Social theorist (and author of, among other things, the popular book ‘The Tipping Point’) Malcolm Gladwell has tackled these socially beneficial actions on the internet with a truly interesting essay published in the New Yorker, where he is a regular columnist. Gladwell, to simplify, believes that the future of the world should not rest on the shoulders of those who log into Facebook and other networks because it actually allows them to participate in certain activities, but at the same time diminishes their motivation or desire to sacrifice for something, which is ultimately necessary to achieve the goal. Indeed, how many brave revolutionaries were there in the campaign ‘Tighten Your Belt, Thieving Gang’, and how many clumsy thugs who were merely venting their frustrations by supporting it? In other words, supporting numerous campaigns, according to the worst-case scenario, will serve to prove that I care (I support, therefore I am aware) and I want my friends, colleagues, associates, or some guy from Illinois to know this. I leave the impression of being a better person. According to Gladwell, history has shown that the best accelerators of action are precisely our closest friends, who, thank God, have existed and will continue to exist regardless of the digital age.

It’s Easy to Become Blunted
And while society tolerates, and should, the attempts and mistakes of initiators of compassion for social problems, another problem lurks in the background, namely the so-called compassion fatigue. This phrase has already entered modern psychological analyses, and if you think Gladwell is radical with his theses, listen to what many world experts in social theory and psychology have to say. Since the crisis and the advent of new media, the world has been bombarded with bad news. Since habituation is completely natural for human beings, it is not hard to assume how easy it is to get used to or, better said, become dulled to the black chronicle, the rising number of unemployed, natural disasters, the inability to fairly distribute social goods, and other scourges of the modern world. This ‘compassion fatigue’ syndrome reflects the fact that individuals, pressed by others’ (and, of course, their own) problems, refuse to take any action, instead choosing a life in which they will put on rose-colored glasses and behave as if everything is just as it should be. In the last few decades, this syndrome has been observed through the lens of experienced, older individuals whose life experiences have led them to react rather lukewarmly to certain stimuli. For illustration, can you imagine explaining the issue of animal testing or the horrific conditions in Croatian maternity wards to an old partisan with an impressive war career? To him, God forbid, it is completely indifferent.

Laptop Activism
And while the world could cope with this, the problem arises when young people who can and must be more vocal now, in order to change tomorrow, fall into apathetic states, states of distorted compassion. Isn’t that sad? Isn’t it really a problem when the young world feels fatigue, overload, or faces a sense of helplessness in initiating social change? Trivial actions on the internet, of course, make fatigue even greater, and any confrontation with guilt can easily be resolved with a click of the ‘like’ button, which sometimes really means nothing. Therefore, every action in the media aimed at gathering and motivating a critical mass to spur their compassion is absolutely commendable, but one must be cautious with them. The advantages of the virtual world in this context are not proportional to its effectiveness, and it should be a second, not the first and only step, as a tool. Simply put, it is really necessary to get up, a little good means much more than a half-hearted big good. Instead of directing your energy towards supporting actions that also wash your soul-care conscience with so-called laptop activism, ask yourself if you can make a difference in your neighborhood. True, healthy compassion, believe me, truly makes a difference.