In the streets, when a person collapses, the bystander effect is at play — the more witnesses there are, the less likely anyone is to intervene. Responsibility disperses, leaving the individual unseen despite being surrounded. But what happens when this phenomenon transcends the physical world and seeps into the endless scroll of our digital lives?

Online, the bystander effect takes on a strange new form — one built not on proximity, but passivity. Each swipe introduces another face: a plea for help, a crisis unfolding, or a story begging for empathy. Yet the mind, dulled by constant stimulation, reduces these moments to fleeting pixels. The weight of responsibility splinters across millions of viewers, each believing someone else will act. The “like” button becomes a proxy for concern, while the “share” function mimics involvement without commitment. 

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard warned of the “crowd” as a numbing force, robbing the individual of their moral agency. In the digital age, the crowd is infinite — an endless feed of faces, each one swallowed by the next. Tragedy becomes spectacle, and empathy is stretched thin across too many screens. 

But this paradox has a quiet remedy. To pause — to resist the scroll — is itself a radical act. It’s in those moments of stillness that responsibility returns to the individual. The screen no longer serves as a wall between self and suffering but as a mirror reflecting one’s own place within it. 

In a world saturated with silent witnesses, the greatest intervention may be refusing to look away.