Problem
Ironically, we live in a world that is more connected than ever, yet individuals are more socially isolated and withdrawn in society. This paradox is especially pronounced in young adults (aged 16-24); they are the most connected on social media, yet in recent years, the prevalence of depression, social isolation and loneliness in this group has become a growing public health concern. Young people have replaced face to face social interaction with the use of social media. In the wider sense, social media dependence, as described, may be linked to the current suicide and mental health epidemic in this age group.
Justification
How connected are we really?
Globally, it is estimated that currently there are more than 3 billion social media users and more than 5 billion people worldwide are estimated to have a mobile phone (Kemp, 2018). Considering there are around 7.6 billion people living on earth today ("World Population Clock: 7.7 Billion People", 2019), one person, theoretically, has social access to more than half of the world. As far as records go, one may argue that there has never been a world that is more connected than the world we live in today.
Who are the most connected?
The most connected demographic is 16-24-year-olds, with more than 70% of 18-24-year-olds (in the US) using Snapchat and Instagram daily (Smith & Anderson, 2018). In the UK, nearly half the time spent on Instagram is by 18-24-year-olds who account for 77% of the users on this platform (Battisby, 2018).
So we like to talk a lot online, what's the big deal? Nothing. Social media and communication online is not inherently a bad thing at all, in fact, research suggests it can be positive (David, Roberts & Christenson, 2018). However, according to a growing body of research, these issues emerge when social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram are consistently used as a potentially inferior alternative to face to face social interaction (Lin et al., 2016; Lepp, Barkley & Karpinski, 2014). Two noteworthy studies have found young adults who used more social media platforms than others were at a higher risk of having both depression and anxiety (Primack, Shensa & Escobar-Viera, 2017) and that excessive Facebook usage was negatively associated with psychological well being, whereas face to face interactions had the reverse effect (Shakya & Christakis, 2017).
Wider implications
Overall, the literature suggests that the negative consequences of social media dependence may indirectly play a part in the public health concern: a growing epidemic of mental health problems and suicide attempts in this demographic. It should also be noted that (in England) 83% of the undergraduate population and 64% of the postgraduate population are aged 16-24. According to the NHS Digital Adult Psychiatric Morbidity survey (2016) the proportion of 16-24-year-olds experiencing common mental health disorders rose by 25% from 1993 to 2014 and in the last 17 years, suicide rates of higher education students have increased by 52% in England and Wales. Importantly, the above statistics may be an underestimation of suicide attempts as they only refer to suicide deaths, excluding non-fatal attempts at suicide (Kisch, Leino & Silverman, 2005; Eskin, 1993a, 1995, 1999; Evans et al., 2005 )
In summary:
- The most connected demographic on social media networks are 16-24-year-olds.
- There is a growing body of research which highlights that social media dependence in this demographic can have negative psychological consequences ( Lin et al., 2016; Lepp, Barkley & Karpinski, 2014).
- The current public health concern of mental health disorders (such as depression) and suicide attempts in this demographic can be associated with their social media dependence. Firstly, research shows that depression is directly associated with suicide in this age group (Gröholt, Ekeberg, Wichström, & Haldorsen, 2000; Liu & Tein, 2005; Sourander, Helstelä, Haavisto, & Bergroth, 2001; Thompson, Mazza, Herting, Randell, & Eggert, 2005) and secondly, individuals who commit suicide often experience loneliness, social withdrawal and social isolation (Dieserud, Roysamb, Ekeberg, & Kraft, 2001; Koivumaa-Honkanen et al., 2001; Stravynski & Boyer, 2001; Waern, Rubenowitz, & Wilhelmson, 2003).
Cool. So what now?
Solution
So what's the solution?
We believe that acts of compassion between strangers that are a part of the same in-group (e.g. University students) will increase a sense of belongingness between them. Moreover, we expect this will manifest as a sense of “camaraderie” between Warwick students; even if they are strangers. We hope that this will help alleviate issues associated with the well-being crisis amongst University students which seems to play a pivotal role in increased suicide rates - a pressing public and higher education institutional health concern.
What is the evidence supporting our solution?
To begin, Baumeister and Leary (1995) claimed that feelings of social isolation is largely a manifestation our core human need to belong, not being fulfilled. Building on this theory, Joiner (2007) coined the interpersonal theory of suicide, which states our need to belong is so strong that, if neglected, can increase the risk for suicide. For example, Durkheim (1987) suggested suicide is partially the result of a society that has failed at promoting social interactions between its members, including strangers. Furthermore, research has found that even among strangers a sense of self and identity can be cultivated in large groups. For instance, we know from social identity theory that groups can be formed from arbitrary criteria (Tajfel, 1970). A large scale example of this is a study found that when a local college football team was successful at national competitions, the suicide rate of that town was lower. This paper proposed that the teams’ success resulted in the town “pulling together” as they all identified as one in-group, resulting in camaraderie between strangers and meeting each individual's need to belong in some capacity (Joiner et al., 2006).
What we did:
We thought that by approaching students and simply ‘just asking’ (Hills, 2014) them “How is your day going?”, would help to promote a sense of compassion. We realised this is a strange request as it would be weird for a stranger to randomly walk up to you, right? However, this is an example of the Pique Technique which proposes that a strange request arouses the targets curiosity and allows them to focus their attention on the strange appeal, which disrupts the possibility of refusal (Santos et al., 1994). Gaining their attention meant that we had a ‘foot in the door’ (Burger, 1999), therefore once we engaged them with the first question of “How is your day going?”, it was easier to get their feedback from the second question which asked: “If more strangers did this, would the world be a better place?”. In every case we proposed the final question after explaining the intentions of the project, asking their permission to directly quote or paraphrase what they have said.
Given the similarity effect (Burger et al., 2001) we hypothesised in the event that the questioner and participant were the same race and /or gender, the compliance rate would be higher. We recorded the proximity of participants to us by noting whether the people we approached on campus were friends of ours, acquaintances or strangers. We predicted, based on social identity theory, that students who were friends of ours would be more willing to have a conversation with us. However, because of evidence found during our literature research, we made an effort to intentionally engage with strangers rather than those we know.
What we found
How close were the participants to us?
Below you can see a pie chart which depicts our proximity to all participants. As you can see 89% of our respondents were strangers
What would you do if a random person came up to you and asked you about your day? Probably wonder if you know them, right? You may reply but still think it's weird, and for many of our subjects, this was the case. This may be because the social cost not to respond is greater when you ignore someone than when you answer them (Flynn & Lake, 2008).
Does similarity matter?
Based on the literature from which the “similarity effect” emerges, we expected a difference in compliance requests. Namely, we’d expect to see higher compliance to our first and second request when the recipient was the same gender or ethnicity as the respondent (Burger et al., 2001). The pie charts below show the similarity effect based on gender and ethnicity, for each we labelled whether the person we spoke to was similar or different to us.
For us, the similarity effect did not determine whether people were more likely to comply or not. In fact, much to our surprise, although at first reluctant, people were willing to comply. When collecting data, we found that guys did not seem to find this a strange request at all and were more willing to speak to us, whilst girls were more inclined to request an explanation. We believe the nature of our questioning was overridden by the Pique technique. When the request was proposed to participants they were caught off guard and steared by their curiosity which naturally inhibited their desire to refuse (Santos, Leve & Pratkani,1994). In fact, all 65 students replied to our initial question “how is your day going?”, whilst a further 91% expanded and explained why they thought the world would or would not be a better place.
Overall, 88% of people thought that the world would be a better place if more people asked each other about their day. Some people thought it would be beneficial as “if done genuinely it’s cute” because “nowadays people don’t see people as people just faces”. Furthermore, people thought that asking each other about their day is worth the awkwardness because “people would feel less lonely”, you can gain more “more contacts” by communicating with one another and most of all you can be “the highlight of someone’s day”. Some students thought that social interactions with strangers are part of our human nature as “in other countries people normally greet each other and it’s a nice experience”. One person even commented on the potential for our project to be used to change society in the future as “you could make a little bit of an impact that can have a ripple effect in the long run”. Lastly, the most informative finding came from the one participant who actually was not a student. He said that “I barely get eye contact walking around campus...I make eye contact but a lot of people shy away. I think it’s social media, everyone’s got their head down on their phone”
On the flip side, only 12% of students thought that the world would not be a better place if more strangers showed compassion by asking about their day. Participants who did not feel like it would be beneficial for people to ask strangers about their day thought that it was “weird and not needed”, whilst others thought that “...for those who are less sociable it wouldn’t really be nice”. Guess you can’t please everyone, right?
Taking this further
Secondly, we found that interestingly some people state social interactions with strangers at the university would make people “less lonely”. Again this is evidence for how we defined the problem earlier, that in the most connected generation, loneliness is the consequence of a lack of face to face interaction. This is further evidenced by people mentioning that speaking to strangers is common in different countries. Although we didn’t find the similarity effect to be an issue in university, this may be explained by the in-group advantage as we are all students and therefore belong to the same in-group in some sense.
We believe that our project can serve as a pilot for a larger initiative. The need for this is evidenced by the majority of those who thought it was beneficial, and anecdotally, the comment which states “you could make a little bit of an impact that can have a ripple effect in the long run”. To take this project further we would use the concept of social contagion which refers to the potential for the behaviour exhibited by one person to be copied by others in their close vicinity (Stephenson & Fielding, 1971). We would execute using a social Influencer (e.g. a YouTuber with a high amount of followers) and asking them to film themselves doing what we have done. By social contagion, we believe that their act of speaking to strangers would proliferate and influence their followers to do the same.
We’ve finally come to the end (phew) but isn’t this idealist?
Yes, this does sound idealistic but we know that in this era of social media, social movements go ‘viral’ overnight. Now, with this in mind, we are convinced that social change in the future will be the result of a cascade of dominoes falling - which first began with one domino that defied the norms by falling.
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