Soft and Music

The bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which people are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely proportional to the number of bystanders.

With millions of Internet users communicating through social network environments everyday, the bystander theory may not remain a valid theory for online social networking. Because people are joining these communities to make friends, these people are more inclined to come to the aid of a friend or distant contact if a personal emergency were discovered.

The challenge we face online is how millions of nonprofessionally trained folks determine the validity of a “call for help,” and how do these users know if someone else has acted on a potentially serious “call for help.” We could have a “Digg” format where users responding to an apparent serious communication click a “helped” button, making visible their response to help someone.

Does the Bystander Rule apply to Internet users? Is it time for the formalization (accountability) of “calls for help” on the Internet?

Because the social networking communities are open to all people that have a computer and Internet connection, it serves as a vehicle for expressing an individual’s feelings on a regular and real-time basis. By allowing an online community member to interact with other members virtually, they can freely express thoughts and feelings they may not normally share when in a face-to-face situation offline. It’s like speaking with your psychologist or psychiatrist instead of a family member or friend.

A possible approach, suggested by the American Psychologist, to negate the bystander effect is to pick a specific person in the crowd to ask for help rather than appealing to the larger group. For example, point directly to a specific bystander and give the person a specific task such as, “You in the red shirt, dial 911.” This clarifies the situation and places the responsibility directly on a specific person instead of allowing it to diffuse.