There has been a concerning trend regarding empathy. Even since before the COVID-19 pandemic, news and media has been flooded with everything that is going wrong in the world. Though it is true that things may have taken a turn for the worse, the public’s mindset and attitude is on the decline as well, with an increased lack of empathetic thinking.

Recent news during this past year has revealed tremendous amounts of horrors and these events, had they taken place twenty years earlier, would incite unanimous outcry. Besides politics, the world is facing major dilemmas in geopolitical conflict and the meaning of humanity. For example, take the Epstein files. Although what has been released has been heavily redacted and modified, it has uncovered extremely gruesome and worrisome behavior. What the public knew as an isolated trafficking ring became a central focus of many other unexplainable events. Any person with a capacity for emotion and rationality would take one look at them and become furious and only wonder, how could this happen? I am more surprised to see how little some people care about the atrocities committed against young children. Regarding news stories on wars, I hear mainly discourse on who is right and who is wrong instead of what it means for the people going through them. It is not the fault of individuals either. The desensitization to constant violence has led people to consider new events simply as temporary headlines.

There have been previous studies to identify and understand this phenomenon. One psychological study done with American university students found a reported 48% decrease in empathy levels just between 1979 and 2009. I can only imagine how much worse it has gotten with the rise of rampant social media and harmful rhetoric. There is an altered dynamic in interactions between people face to face that can largely be attributed to excessive social media use. In addition to levels of empathy decreasing, levels of narcissism, xenophobia and misogyny are steadily increasing especially in the West. So it is not enough to say that people just don’t care; they don’t care about people who are not exactly like them. It has gotten so laughable that “being an empath” became one big inside internet joke in which people claimed to have found some new, unique experience where they could understand how others were feeling. Some people I know personally have admitted to using AI instead of human connection to be understood or talk to about problems in life. Like compassion, empathy is taught. Unfortunately, so is hate, and in a world that is so uncertain, it seems safer to not have to consider how other people are feeling at all.

The decline in caring as of late has shown up as a masked “hustle culture” where a person has no priority but to be as efficient and indifferent as possible and while chronic stressors like finances and society can explain the reasons why, the best solution is to slow down and think going forward. It is true that practicing empathy takes time and energy, so being intentional is rather important. Even small moments of mindfulness and understanding can make a huge difference on how someone’s day goes. It is also worth practicing for one’s own mental health and clarity. If people have the ability to care about others, they have the ability to be at peace with themselves as well. The recent comebacks in practicing empathy and mindful thinking are due to younger generations making an effort to understand what it means to care. Generation Z, although in the presence of the most technology and social media, has shown strides in keeping human connection alive. It matters to care.