Tackling Online Empathy Deficits: Exploration of New Methods with Humanities and Social Scientific Concepts

IASDR2021 workshop (5 Dec 2021)

Organizers:
Will Zhang (National University of Singapore)
Kate Sangwon Lee (Hong Kong PolyU)
Hai Guang Lian (National University of Singapore)
Alex Mitchell (National University of Singapore)
Bow Yiying Wu (Hong Kong PolyU)
Jung-Joo Lee (National University of Singapore)

Hong Kong / Singapore / Taipei : 3pm – 7pm

Seoul / Tokyo: 4pm – 8pm

Sydney: 6pm – 10pm

London: 7am – 11am

Pacific: 11pm (Dec 4) – 3am

Introduction

Online empathy deficits are often found in social media interactions, where users frequently encounter arguments, misunderstandings, and abuses related to low interpersonal empathy. Empathy deficit phenomena are accelerated and amplified by the interactional affordances of social media platforms (such as interface features and algorithmic structures), where designers can intervene. This workshop explores a new method of harnessing humanities/social scientific concepts to enhance design processes and tackle online empathy deficits. The workshop sensitizes participants to a series of conceptual resources from psychological science, communications studies, and philosophy through playful activities and design tools, and guides participants towards fresh perspectives and techniques of creative ideation in designing for empathy.

3 ingredients of empathy

Psychological research reveals 3 dissociable ingredients of empathy – mentalization, experience sharing, and compassion. How can this fine-grained framework of empathy enrich design understanding and opportunities? Join our workshop on 5 December 2021 to find out!

Pre-workshop preparation

We’ll conduct the workshop on Zoom while using MIRO as a digital canvas. Please set up MIRO on your devices beforehand.

We’ll provide participants with preparatory materials (instructions, short readings, pre-workshop canvas) 1 week before the workshop.