Assignment 7

1 The lyrics were a reminder of the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, an incident that began a national debate about the responsibility of the average citizen to come to the aid of people in danger. A young woman was brutally murdered in a New York residential area while at least 38 people watched. Ever since, professional students of human behavior and amateurs alike have attempted to explain why no one was willing to become involved. In this selection, Loudon Wainwright briefly records the feelings of some of those who saw Kitty Genovese killed.

2 To judge from the bitter example given us by the good folks of a respectable New York residential area, Samaritans are very scarce these days. .. . if the reactions of the 38 witnesses to the murder of Catherine Genovese provide any true reflection of a national attitude toward our neighbors, we are becoming a callous, chicken-hearted and immoral people.... An examination of the pitiful facts of Miss Genovese’s terminal experience makes very necessary the ugly personal question each of us must ask: What would I have done?

3 The story is simple and brutal. As she arrived home in the early morning darkness, Kitty Genovese, a decent, pretty young woman of 28, was stalked through the streets close to her Kew Gardens apartment and stabbed again and again by a man who had followed her home and who took almost a half hour to kill her. During that bloody little eternity, . . . Kitty screamed and cried repeatedly for help “Oh, my God!” she cried out at one point. “He stabbed me! Please help me! Someone help me!” Minutes later, before the murderer came back and attacked her for the final time, she screamed, “I’m dying! I’m dying!”

4 The reason the murderer’s actions and his victim’s calls are so well documented is that police were able to find 38 of Kitty’s neighbors who admitted they witnessed the awful event. They heard the screams and most understood her cry for help. Peeking out their windows, many saw enough of the killer to provide a good description of his appearance and clothing. A few saw him strike Kitty, and more saw her staggering down the sidewalk after she had been stabbed twice and was looking for a place to hide. One especially sharp-eyed person was able to report that the murderer was sucking his finger as he left the scene; he had cut himself during the attack. Another witness has the awful distinction of being the only person Kitty Genovese recognized in the audience taking in her final moments. She looked at him and called to him by name. He did not reply.

5 No one really helped Kitty at all. Only one person shouted at the killer (“Let that girl alone!”), and the one phone call that was finally made to the police was placed after the murderer had gotten in his car and driven off. For the most part the witnesses, crouching in darkened windows like watchers of a Late Show, looked on until the play had passed beyond their view. Then they went back to bed.

6 On the scene a few days after the killer had been caught and confessed, Police Lieutenant Bernard Jacobs discussed the investigation. “The word we kept hearing from the witnesses later was ‘involved,’” Jacobs said “People told us they just didn’t want to get involved,” Jacobs said to me. “They don’t want to be questioned or have to go to court.” He pointed to an apartment house directly across the quiet street. “They looked down at this thing,” he went on, “from four different floors of that building.” “It’s a nice neighborhood, isn’t it?” he went on. “Doesn’t look like a jungle. Good, solid people. We don’t expect anybody to come out into the street and fight this kind of bum. All we want is a phone call. We don’t even need to know who’s making it.

7 “You know what this man told us after we caught him?” Jacobs asked. “He said he figured nobody would do anything to help. He heard the windows go up and saw the lights go on. He just retreated for a while and when things quieted down, he came back to finish the job.”

8 Later, in one of the apartment houses, a witness to part of Kitty Genovese’s murder talked. His comments indicate the price in bad conscience he and his neighbors are now paying. “I feel terrible about it,” he said. “The thing keeps coming back in my mind. You just don’t want to get involved. They might have picked me up as a suspect if I’d bounced right out there. I was getting ready, but my wife stopped me. She didn’t want to be a hero’s widow. I woke up about the third scream. I pulled the blind so hard it came off the window. The girl was on her knees struggling to get up. I didn’t know if she was drunk or what. I never saw the man. She staggered a little when she walked, like she had a few drinks in her. I forgot the screen was there, and I almost put my head through it trying to get a better look. I could see people with their heads out and hear windows going up and down all along the street.”

9 “Every time I look out here now,” he said, “it’s like looking out at a nightmare. How could so many of us have had the same idea that we didn’t need to do anything? But that’s not all that’s wrong.” Now he sounded betrayed and he told what was really eating him. Those 38 witnesses had, at least, talked to the police after the murder. The man pointed to a nearby building. “There are people over there who saw everything,” he said. “And there hasn’t been a peep out of them yet. Not one peep.”

1 If you logged on to any of your social media accounts this past Monday you undoubtedly saw an outpouring of posts thanking our veterans for their sacrifice along with multiple links to the typhoon Haiyan disaster in the Philippines. As I scrolled through my feeds, I started to wonder if the appearance of support was actually discouraging people from helping either group. How many people decided posting was enough? Have social media platforms become the ultimate example of the bystander effect where nobody does anything because they assume someone else will?

2 If you consider that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter resemble massive online rooms full of people, they present the perfect conditions for the bystander effect to take hold. Most of us have hundreds of Facebook friends, surely someone will step up and offer aid, right? Considering so many of them are posting about the issue, it’s not an unreasonable assumption, but when everyone assumes the same thing, nobody ends up doing anything.

3 Brian Solis led a project for the United Nations in 2010 to help increase awareness of Malaria in Africa and also generate $10 donations for bed nets. He found that initially most people shared rather than donated, essentially accomplishing just one of the two goals. In his research to uncover why, he found that people believed that their act of sharing was worth much more than a $10 contribution. He found that people truly thought that their digital influence or social capital equated to tens or even hundreds of individual donations from their connections. This inflated sense of net worth in social, if not reassessed individually, will only bankrupt the real nature and value of the network effect as Brian would say. What happens when everyone believes they have excessive digital influence and social capital?

4 When we delve deeper into the factors that contribute to the bystander effect, we find that distant problems shared on social media present the ideal conditions for lack of action.

5 Ambiguity of need. If people aren’t sure what kind of help someone needs, they are less likely to offer any. In the case of veterans, some need help, but many are successful. Furthermore, most people don’t know how or where to offer assistance. The Veterans Administration? A random charity? Give a dollar to the guy on the corner who claims to be a veteran? Both the need and the manner of providing aid are ambiguous. In the case of typhoon Haiyan, the problem is literally on the other side of the world. All we know is what we see in pictures and what we know from a few links that might have a donation button. Social media helps us share our sentiments but does little to clarify the ambiguity of the problem at hand.

6 Cohesiveness of the group. A group which shares strong bonds between its members is more likely to offer help over one with weak bonds. Social media bonds are largely virtual. We don’t really know many of our social media connections at all. Using myself as an example, I have 911 Facebook friends and I’d estimate I’m legitimately friends with maybe 100 of them. The rest are basically entries in an online Rolodex. A social media group is likely to be far less cohesive than one you would encounter in the real world.

7 The option/possibility of diffusing responsibility. As I mentioned earlier, the larger the group the less likely people are to step in and help. In a small group, it is unreasonable to assume that someone else, or someone more qualified, is available to provide aid. But in a large group, it becomes easier to assume that there are people who are better equipped to offer assistance, and therefore easier for any one person to ignore the problem based on the assumption that someone else will take responsibility. In a giant “room” such as a social media platform, it is no stretch to take for granted that someone else will be there to help.

8 Returning to Veteran’s Day and typhoon Haiyan, I’m curious to see how our actions compare to what we display on social media. How many of you posted or tweeted some message of thanks to veterans without contributing anything of value that might be helpful to a veteran in need? How many of you shared a link about typhoon Haiyan without donating anything to aid in the Philippines? I’ll volunteer myself as the first hypocrite. I didn’t post about Veteran’s Day, but I did share links about typhoon Haiyan, and until I wrote this post, I had not contributed. I have now.

9 The social psychology of the bystander effect is proven and likely working against you. Don’t let social media turn you into a do-nothing.