Every time someone from my previous generations starts bitching about millennials or the Gen Z members, I get super defensive. I swat away their accusations of us being a generation of self-obsessed emotionally detached individuals. Instead, I tell them how we are in fact, most in tune with our emotions and thereby empathetic to others. However, at times I do see the cracks in my tall claims.
Just look around you when you get into a metro. Everyone is busy on their phones, staying updated on those remote connections while being utterly blind to the ones they are touching elbows with.
Anna Whitehouse, an ambassador of #ExpectingChange campaign recently did a social experiment to highlight this fact.
In a bid to raise awareness on how oblivious people act in metros, often ignoring the needs of those in need, like pregnant women and senior citizens, Anna donned the appearance of a heavily pregnant woman.
She got in crowded Metros to see how many people would offer her their seats.
In the video, we see that most people are too busy on their phones to notice a heavily pregnant woman standing next to them. While some do offer her their seat, in some cases Anna herself has to ask the person if they would mind giving her the seat. She also says that just wearing the fake pregnancy bump wasn’t enough. For people to notice, she had to amp up her performance by breathing heavily, rubbing the bump etc.
Though certain seats are allocated to those in need, in public transport, people often choose to ignore these reservations.
Watch the video here:
We can all learn from Anna’s experiment and remember to be more aware of our surroundings everywhere. Technology was meant to be an aid to humans, not something that further separates us from each other. So put that phone down, talk to the person next to you. When was the last time any of us did that on a public transport?