Digital for Good by Richard Culatta

Author:Richard Culatta [Culatta, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2021-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Hate Is Contagious—but So Is Kindness

We hear so many examples of the escalating divisiveness and anger that exist in virtual spaces. It feels as if animosity is contagious. But the good news is that kindness is contagious, too. I’m often surprised by how little effort it takes to turn unkindness around, even in virtual spaces where the more nuanced forms of communication, such as tone of voice and body language, are missing. Most acts of intolerance stop as soon as a bystander intervenes on behalf of someone who is being disrespected.7 When Kristen Layne wanted to buy a new prom dress, she decided to get the money she needed by selling her old prom dress online. She posted a picture of herself wearing the dress to GoFundMe for people to bid on. Unfortunately, some of the responses were cruel, pointing out her weight and making fun of her appearance. With great restraint, she responded by bravely saying, “Can you please stop with the comments? Sorry that I’m not pleasing to your eye.” But unfortunately the taunting didn’t stop; it got worse. If I stopped the story here, you might guess how it would end, perhaps with yet another case of someone getting bullied to the point of taking their own life.

Only it didn’t. Not long after the hateful comments began, one person decided to move from being a bystander to an upstander, actively creating a more inclusive virtual world by posting that she thought Layne looked “stunning” and “beautiful on the inside and out.” Others then followed and began flooding the comments section with uplifting messages of encouragement. Layne said the uplifting comments made her feel better about herself and realize she was not alone. In what became a community effort to stand up to digital intolerance, hundreds of people began flooding Layne’s page with kind comments. She ended up receiving over $5,000 in donations to buy her new dress, much of which she used to help other students who weren’t able to afford their own dresses.8

By moving from being bystanders to active advocates, our children can become ambassadors for a more inclusive digital world. While our physical world is still largely segregated based on where we live, our digital world brings an opportunity for cross-pollination of urban and suburban, poor and wealthy, east and west, sick and well, vegan and cattle rancher, millennial and boomer, socialist and libertarian, Yankees fan and Red Sox fan. These diverse connections exponentially increase the number of times our brains confront ideas that challenge our existing views. If we quickly reject new ideas—and the people who present them—we are reinforcing our certainty bias. Yet when we can become comfortable with and try to understand a differing viewpoint, we are in a position to do some of our most important learning.

We aren’t teaching our children to include others only because it’s a nice thing to do. We are teaching them that their knowledge is limited and that one of the best ways they can fill

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