Let's All Learn to Be More Empathatic
Hi everyone and welcome back to Spill Season Pod. I am your Host Savannah and I have a really thought provoking episode for you today. Something that has been on my mind and I really wanted to share as I hope that it can connect with others that feel the same and we can hopefully create more community, connection, and a positive change for ourselves and our loved ones. I found a wonderful website, and I cannot believe I had not heard of it until recently, and that is Substack. If you have not heard of it, the best way to describe it is a platform designed to help writers, journalists, and creators publish and distribute newsletters and articles directly to their subscribers. Its core purpose is to give individuals control over their audience and content without relying on traditional media outlets or social networks.
I found a wonderful article on Substack called “the most attractive thing to me is empathy” by Gor that really drew my attention. As I was reading I realized how much less we see empathy in this world. Not that it doesn’t exist, but real empathy seems harder to come by, harder to experience by our peers and the people we are around. Here’s what Gor said about the kind of empathy he is referring to “not the kind that makes noise, not the kind that performs goodness for an audience, but the quiet, steady kind that listens. the kind that knows how to read a sigh before it becomes a sentence. the kind that notices the small things, the hesitation before a word, the way someone’s voice falters mid-laugh, and chooses gentleness instead of judgment. Empathy, to me, is when someone can sit beside your silence and still understand that you’re speaking, when they know the difference between when you need advice and when you just need to be held. It's a softness of spirit, a way of seeing the world without armour. I think I've reached a point in life where nothing draws me in more than that, not beauty, not brilliance, not charisma, but the quiet ability to care, really care, when no one is watching.”
I get what he is referring to. It’s not that empathy doesn’t exist altogether but it’s lacking the meaning it used to have. Nowadays we are all so overstimulated by life that we don’t quite seem to have the capacity to show the kind of empathy others and quite honestly, ourselves, need to keep the human connection I think we all desperately need. What’s the culprit though? It never seemed to be this way, so why now, why all of the sudden are we seeing an uptick in the loss of human understanding and connection? Social Media! It has its place, and it has created a global reach and wider audience in ways we could not have imagined when it was first born. However, it has also created a monster, a monster that is distance, less Face-to-face communication, less conflict resolution, and empathy can weaken when most interaction is digital. Another article I found written by Alison Jane Martingano titled Social Media and Empathy Around the World said this “We asked over 1,250 Americans to estimate how frequently they checked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and to complete questionnaires where they self-described various qualities that researchers call empathy. The more social media people reported using, the lower their levels of empathy. This trend did not vary much according to the type of social media we asked about, how we measured empathy, or participants' age, gender, or education, with one notable exception. Namely, participants who reported using social media more frequently were more likely to report feeling personal distress in response to other people's expressions of emotions.” Later she described how when looking at this globally, it did appear that other countries' view and usage of Social Media was different and appeared to have a less “negative” affect regarding Empathy. She did make this point “Populations outside of America appear to use social media for different purposes including fostering social bonds, and, for them, more social media use is associated with being more empathic. Perhaps people's motivations for using social media can tell us more about their character than simply the amount of time they spend online.”
How can we combat this while keeping the opportunities that Social Media creates? Perhaps the first step is being honest about WHY social media is being used. Once an honest reflection is made, then action can be made to help foster a more balanced view and use of social media so I want put a challenge to everyone, come up with some viable, sustainable, options for how you can limit your screen time on social media, and perhaps come up with hobbies or things that can fill in that time and come back in…let’s say 30 days, and see how you feel. Do you feel more at peace, calm, centered, and fulfilled? Do you feel more lonely, depressed, chaotic in your mind? Could this help with changing the way we view social media or could it simply just open our eyes to other things that can make us happy other than social media?
I would love to get your thoughts after this trial and really hear how you fared giving this a shot. It’s something I am currently putting into practice as well. I am undergoing a surgery early next month and I knew I would be quite limited on my activities during healing so I decided to find creative, easy going and peaceful activities to be productive but away from Social Media. I got a water color kit with over 100 colors and I also purchased a drawing kit that includes charcoal pencils, charcoal sticks, and graphite pencils as well as a couple colored pencils as well. I am really excited to put this into practice as it’s been many years since I’ve drawn or painted anything and it used to be a fun pastime for me. I am looking forward to seeing my progress over time.
Then discuss the details of surgery, why and hope for it afterwards.
If you would like to share your progress, and even perhaps have your update shared on the podcast, send me an email to spillseasonpod@gmail.com. Or you can go to the podcast website, www.spillseason.com and use the contact form to send me a message.
I look forward to hearing from you and thank you all for your continuous support! Stay tuned for the next episode coming out next Wednesday!
Cited Sources:
https://goranshbharal.substack.com/p/the-most-attractive-thing-to-me-is