Pulliam: Is Facebook killing our ability to relate?

An Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis researcher worries about our decline in empathy and compassion even as the world becomes more connected.

Sure, we have at our fingertips tons of information about other people and places. But Sara Konrath has numbers that suggest we are losing the ability to walk in other people's shoes. Researching at the Indiana University School of Philanthropy, Konrath doesn't necessarily blame social media. The problem may be busyness and frantic lifestyles. Or family breakdown. Or children growing up with no sisters or brothers. Or loss of neighborhood connections. Or all of the above.

She's tracking a trend with dire social consequences. If narcissism remains on the march, we perish as a civilization.

"This is the empathy paradox," Konrath said. "As we are becoming more interdependent in a global sense, we are becoming less interdependent within our individual lives."

Face-to-face communication, for example, strengthens empathy in a way that Facebook misses. Going anonymous adds to the problem. Keep victims at a distance, her research suggests, and aggressors don't mind turning up the pain.

Yet her research is not all doom and gloom. New technology has advantages, such as new options for raising money for disasters or charitable works.

She also is working on a smartphone app to help teens build empathy. The name: Random App of Kindness. She's looking for research participants (appstudy@iupui.edu). Another study group is getting daily text messages to encourage empathy with short reminders that giving is better than receiving.

Konrath offers a simple discipline to boost empathy: volunteering. Her research verifies the common-sense instinct that serving others can build compassion.

Coming to IU philanthropy from the University of Michigan, Konrath traces her interest in empathy research to her family background in Canada. As one of eight children, she watched her mother struggle as a single parent. A very dedicated volunteer, Ruth Zehr, stepped into the family's life and filled many gaps with practical service and love. "Ruth would invite us to church, but she didn't preach to us," Konrath said. "She just lived out her faith before us."

Pulliam is associate editor of The Star. Follow him on Twitter: @Rbpulliam .