Advanced Essay #3-Bystander Effect in Today's World

Violence is what makes the world go around, said no one, but it seems eerily true. You could look anywhere in the world and find terrible things happening. Isis just claimed responsibility for what happened in Sri Lanka, China has started to militarize Pakistan. Myanmar is jailing reporters who opposed the dictatorship in place, it seems as though the Russians just hacked into the US elections system. The US in general is just a political mess, people in Venezuela are trying to escape a ruthless dictator, and the stories just go on and on. Sadly this has almost always been the case in human history, people doing horrible things to each other for personal gain. The violence seems to have no end in site. But there is some light in all of this darkness, documentation. The progress of the digital world has helped us see things that we never would have had a window to before. It has not always stopped the violence from occurring, but it has made people who do these things way more cautious. And maybe one day, will stop all of these events in general.

Our new found use of technology has helped us in many ways. Things that we never could have seen before are now accessible to almost everyone. These crazy events that happen on the other side of the world can still be seen. But sadly this has left us with a new problem, accountability. Since now everyone is seeing everything, it is assumed that the problem is being taken care of. And as long as everyone is assuming that it is someone else's problem, nothing is going to get done. This is called the bystander effect, which according to psychology today is “the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation”. This was first just seen as an issue with people who are seeing the same even with their own eyes. But now with the internet spreading everything, this effect has spread with it. Leaving society with a problem that very much so needs to be addressed.

A clear example of this effect would be facebook live and things that have been broadcasted on it. An example of this was reported on by Times Magazine, when a 15 year old girl was sexually assaulted on a facebook live video that was viewed according to a source by 40 people. Despite this no one called the police. An example outside of the internet would be when Ilan Halimi was kidnapped in paris by Moroccan “Barbarians” to try and get money from his family because of the fact that he was jewish reported the New York Times. While in captivity several of the neighbors to the place that he was being held in heard the commotion and in some instances actually saw what was happening. Yet again, no one called the authorities or tryed to put an end to what was happening in any way. This is a really big physiological problem that we as humans have yet to be able to fully understand. The list of examples is so long that there is an example of this effect in the bible, when Jesus is telling a lawyer about how everyone is everyone's neighbor. And he gives an example of this happening, were several people pass by a man on the side of a road who has been beaten. And in the only person who stopped to help him was a samaritan. What this story is trying to say is very important, regardless if you are religious or not, it exposes human nature and people who aim to change it and people who just go along with the same old same old.

As I have said many many times this is a problem, but I haven’t really gone in to how to fix it. And that really is the problem, because to fix this we need to do something that humans by nature do not do. And that is accountability, and we can see this in multiple aspects of life. Everything from climate change, to who is responsible for finishing the benchmark. It all comes down to people owning up to their mistakes, and not only doing that but fixing them. Which is something that we don’t typically do, it is part a of our subconscious. This is why we need to start actively thinking about this consciously. Even if people just took a little more initiation when seeing something, the world would be a much better place. Not even what happens on social media, but if you see someone getting called call the police. Or if it is your job to do something actually do it, and don’t just depend on others to get it done. And even if it isn’t your job, and you  just see someone in need, do something about it instead of just leaving it for someone else. I am not at all exempt from this, and I really do think that by fixing the little things it could affect things that I didn’t even expect. If every single person just took on a little more responsibility, we could actually solve some of the worlds problems instead of ignoring them.

Citations-

• “Bystander Effect.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bystander-effect.

• “Chicago Teen Sexually Assaulted on Facebook Live Fears Home.” Time, Time, 22 Mar. 2017, time.com/4710231/chicago-teen-sexual-assault-facebook-live/.

• Smith, Craig S. “Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/world/europe/torture-and-death-of-jew-deepen-fears-in-france.html.

• “Who Is Your Neighbor? Well, Who Are You?” Desiring God, 3 May 2019, www.desiringgod.org/articles/who-is-your-neighbor-well-who-are-you.