According to research by the University of Southern California's Brain and Creativity Institute, fast-paced modern media such as Twitter fail to give us the necessary time to reflect on either our own comments and actions or those of others.
Researchers used compelling, real-life stories to induce admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain, in 13 volunteers. They found that emotions linked to our moral sense awaken slowly in the mind - brain imaging showed that the volunteers needed six to eight seconds to fully respond.
The study inevitably raised questions about the emotional cost of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news stories, as personified by Twitter. According to the university's Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, "If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality." Immordino-Yang was keen to point out, however, that the blame lies not with social media per se, but the way in which it is used.
Hanna Damisio, co-director of the Institute, has voiced concerns about the juxtopositioning of good and bad news on sites such as Twitter, saying that it leads to an "indifference to the vision of human suffering."
Younger employees have grown up with social media. They are used to getting their information in rapidly-delivered soundbites, good and bad tidings together. They are very well informed. But are they good, rounded, people? Do they view colleagues with care and compassion? And if not, what should employers be doing to ensure that they do so?
Comments (2)
Posted by Ben Moss | April 15, 2009 11:45 AM
So, are we looking at the evolution of human communication....or its terminal decline? ‘Twitterers’ clearly value interacting via soundbites, but the trend’s longer-term consequences are much less clear. The credit crunch has been hailed as an antidote to our capitalistic ‘I’ culture, but the rise of Twitter’s mantra of ‘look what I’m doing now’ (and now....and now...) argues against this. The biggest worry is the impact on our already depleted attention spans – it’s actually becoming socially acceptable to get bored when things get complicated! The research reminds me of an excellent piece in the Guardian by comedian David Mitchell about government plans to oust ‘boring teachers’. His point was that we have to accept that subjects like maths are fundamentally boring....but that they are really very useful. Twittering’s fine, but human thought and emotion - and all they can achieve - will outlast this latest trend.
Original Mitchell article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/11/david-mitchell-comment-is-free
Cary Cooper blog comment on it: http://carycooperblog.com/2009/03/
Posted on April 15, 2009 11:45
Posted by Laurel Edmunds | April 16, 2009 8:10 PM
Our emotions evolved very early on and we ignore them at our peril. As Professor Barbara Fredrickson has shown, positive emotions not only have the potential to make us function better and improve our resilience, they also act as a ‘reset button’ helping us to recover from negative states faster. Experiencing positive emotions, particularly at work is associated with being more on task, wanting to stay in post and less time off sick.
Employers need to understand that having employees who are capable of processing information with an emotional content faster is not necessarily better. Leading by example is a start to encouraging employees to value, respect and take an interest in their colleagues, particularly in the current economic climate.
Posted on April 16, 2009 20:10