Awareness and Empathy: Global Issues
Writer: Sophia Zhang
Editor: Mia Liang
Photographer: United Nations
In a world that is becoming more and more connected by the means of technology, social media, and news, we would expect to have more awareness and empathy towards distant issues. Despite this, there seems to be a detachment between people and issues that seem far away from them, whether separated by time or space. It is worth exploring these attitudes because it can help us address problems regarding ethical imperative, and our duty to care for each other at the scale of global responsibility. Issues like the impact of climate change on future generations, suffering in other countries, and the experiences of the less fortunate all reflect the extensions of our ability to care about each other at the basic individual level.
It is important for us to first identify the current attitudes that we have, and the possible causes of those attitudes. When we hear about issues that should be important to us, it sometimes fails to elicit a reaction and a growth in awareness from people, which results in a lack of action. As humans, we are made to care more about immediate things in our lives, such as the people close to us, yet we often fail to see the global picture and the necessity of coming together to fight pertinent issues. There is also a difference between being unknowingly and willingly ignorant. The current state of attitudes towards foreign issues comes from a combination of a lack of exposure, and an interplay of psychological and social factors.
For example, if we consider the issue of climate change, many view the consequences as remote. According to a survey by Ipsos from Earth Day 2023, under one third agree that their government has a clear plan in place to tackle climate change, and 70% of people think that individual actions can make a difference to climate action efforts. The report by Ipsos also mentions that we have a shared responsibility in combating climate change, which includes individuals, businesses, and national governments. However, even with this shared belief of responsibility, there is less of a belief that individuals should take steps to combat the issue. There are many reasons why this is the case, such as the cost of the necessary steps to combat climate change and whether this is outweighed by the consequences of not taking any such steps. Although there is awareness about the issue, it is not necessarily at the extent that is required, and it may not be prioritized as much as other issues.
Another important category is political issues that both do and do not concern us personally. A recent hot topic has been Instagram limiting the amount of political content that can be seen in a user’s feed by defaulting the settings in a person’s account so that political content is limited, which means less posts about political debates, laws, and elections being shown to users. This mirrors the recent ban on access to Canadian news for Facebook and Instagram. Such issues about censorship easily go unnoticed, but are extremely relevant to our global responsibility as individuals, and especially as students. This connects to the exacerbation a lack of exposure has on attitudes towards foreign issues. Students often spend a lot of time on apps such as Instagram, as a way to both socialize with each other and to stay in touch with issues in the current world. By doing so, they see pictures, videos, and messages about various issues ranging from current elections to things happening in other countries. Without this exposure, and with general ignorance of under-table censorship policies passed by media corporations, students are considerably harmed. The main way in which they access information is now limited, especially for those who are not actively seeking political content. They may be unconsciously affected by the content they see online, and by the discussions of their peers.
It is clear that there is a lot that we cannot control about the factors of exposure and psychological or social states as individuals. For example, as students, the censorship of information on social media is out of our control. At the same time, our actions take an effect on the people around us and vice versa. The issues that seem to be distant are actually interconnected in the global context. We can recognize our ethical duty to learn about the obstacles to our collective global awareness by actively seeking more information, which could come in different forms for different people. One of the most important steps, though, is overcoming the barrier of thinking that individuals cannot make a difference. The sooner we come to terms with our current global climate, the sooner we can take action on the issues that matter.
Citations:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/instagram-political-content-1.7154360