I remember September 11, 2001 in perfect detail, from the clothes I was wearing to the hum of the computer screens in our classroom. It's a scene that I'll be able to recall for the rest of my life, and it will surely be the same for millions of Parisians who'll remember Friday's terrorist attacks that killed at least 129 people.
It's almost as if we're all in a club that we didn't ask to join; the worst kind of membership card that we could ever carry. We changed our social media photos to the French flag in support. We posted heartfelt condolences. We desperately searched for ways to try to help in any small way that we could.
But the common thread that drives us to behave this way isn't our similar circumstances -- it's a basic human connection.
Empathy -- our ability to understand and share the feelings of another -- is a driving force of human behavior. It's exactly why we feel so close to the upsetting events that unfolded in Paris. It's also ultimately what compels us to speak out about it on social media, according to Gerald Goodman, author of The Talk Book and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The process goes a little something like this: Horror and fear are universal emotions that we've all experienced, so we feel empathy when someone goes through this process. If we're removed from the situation (i.e., following the Paris attacks from the U.S.), that empathy shifts to compassion, or sorrow for the person experiencing the event, which can spark feelings of helplessness. That process then compels us to take action -- however small that may be -- to mitigate the feeling that we're powerless. Hence, our posts of support.
"It's too uncomfortable to sit there and do nothing," Goodman told The Huffington Post. "People might ridicule you for doing something so silly, but it stems from an emotion of wanting to be connected, feeling helpless, then doing something about it."
“People might ridicule you for doing something so silly, but it stems from an emotion of wanting to be connected, feeling helpless, then doing something about it.”
While empathy is a force of good, it is far from perfect. For example, why are we posting more support for Paris than we are for Beirut? Where are the social media tributes for the hundreds of other people who have been affected by horrible violence this year? The short answer: There's a cognitive bias toward what's familiar.
"Human beings seem particularly able to feel empathy when they perceive those who are suffering as similar to them," said Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Health Care.
"Horrible things happen every day -- indeed there was a terrorist attack in Beirut on the same day as the Paris attack -- but many Americans see that as farther away from their experience and harder to empathize with," he added.
As Maura Judkis points out in The Washington Post, our social media posts may also be a little more self-absorbed than selfless. We have a tendency toward being narcissistic online, posting images of ourselves in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre and waxing poetic about loving the city of love because we've been there. We relate. We empathize. Aligning ourselves with a tragedy that otherwise has nothing to do with us personally is a psychological construct we can't help but play into. But if it promotes a stance of unity, is that really such a bad thing?
Ultimately, no.
"Because social media brings us closer than ever to the victims of faraway attacks, it is possible that we feel more deeply than we would have in a pre-Facebook era," Judkis wrote. "Not to mention, it is easy to put oneself in the shoes of the victims."
Research shows that humans are hardwired for empathy. A University of Virginia study found that who we know and empathize with may largely influence our own self-identity. Simply put, our brains love to share and relate. Take that and then factor in the large, open platform that our newsfeed provides us, and you've got the perfect playground for what we're already biologically wired to do.
When it comes down to it, we can't help but emote during tragedy and social media gives us the audience. But not only that, as humans, words of support gives us all a sense of hope; a necessary feeling of good during a time of turmoil. In a world full of uncertainty, human connection is a constant.
"That's the lovely thing about human nature," Goodman explained. "We have a built-in need to connect with human suffering."
In other words? We are all Parisians.
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