That's space, Julia.

Hi, Sam here and welcome back to Radio Headspace and to Friday morning.

So recently I've been thinking about how we interact with each other on social media

and how we offer support to each other online.

And this got me thinking about the bystander effect.

So the bystander effect refers to the theory that a person is less likely to assist someone

who needs help when other people are present.

It was a phenomenon observed when the violent crime occurred in New York City in the 1960s

and it was witnessed by over 100 people who did nothing to stop it.

They all had assumed that someone else had already taken action.

Some research has investigated the bystander effect in the context of social media.

A recent study found that people who were the sole recipients of an email asking for help

responded more often than participants who knew many people had received the email.

What happened in this case is a diffusion of responsibility, an assumption that someone

else has or will respond and that we're off the hook.

So this brought up a memory of a time when I was in need of help and I reached out to

my online community.

I was working in the UK and I got very sick.

My sickness was followed by a month of not being able to smell or taste anything and this

was pre-COVID.

So I was panicking.

I thought maybe it's a permanent problem.

...