Touching grass

The more time we spend online, the less kind and more disconnected we tend to become. This is because of the nature of communication in most digital spaces: interactions are short-lived and the stakes are low because people can hold a high degree of anonymity. Even when we use our real identity, we can easily block or disengage from others. This means we don't have to be held accountable for bad behaviour.

Now, this is not necessarily true for everyone. But anyone who spends time on social media, dating apps, forums, or video games is affected in one way or another by this. And bad behaviour slowly gets normalised because as a society we become desensitised over time.

If there's some truth to my observation, then we can conclude the world has a shortage of kindness.

So what can we do? The obvious answer is to spend less time online and to be mindful of how some of the apps we use might be affecting our behaviour. Monkey see, monkey do.

Another thing that seems to help is to imagine we're always being watched by someone we care about — someone who has high standards for how to treat other people.