People are wondering how workplace violence has become so prevalent and what can be done in order to address the massive amounts of emotional and mental illnesses plaguing our modern society.
In this blog we will unravel 2 of the 3 “real” reasons behind the rise in workplace violence and what we can begin to do about them.
The three major factors contributing to workplace violence are:
1. School creation of safe spaces and zero tolerance for violence
2. Social media search algorithms
3. The neurological effects of social isolation
In this article we will discuss the first two.
Safe Spaces and Zero Tolerance
When schools began implementing safe spaces and zero tolerance for violence what they really
did was remove social adversity from the lives of young children. Social adversity is imperative
for proper emotional and mental development in kids because it allows them to build character
under stress and identify what side of morality they wish to be on.
Social adversity comes in the form of dealing with bullies, or lightly being made fun of by
other kids. When kids are presented with these challenges it allows them to reflect internally
on their character and either change, or not care and move forward with a newfound sense of
originality and independence. This also allows for kids to develop emotional intelligence which
is imperative in their later years so, as a young adult, they don’t go shooting a place up every
time they are upset.
Furthermore, zero tolerance for violence disempowers the child to not stand up for
what is right. This moral conflict within a child is that they begin to view standing up against
bullies as something to be chastised for. This gets worse with time because the whole” go get a
teacher” approach doesn’t correlate later in life when that kid is now a 27-year-old man
working at a bank.
Instead, they have to now come up with new resolutions and without the ability to
emotionally control themselves in a professional setting. What’s the result? They get a gun and
shoot everyone who ever made them mad at their workplace. By allowing kids the ability to
deal with normal social adversities in school and on the playground, and by teaching them emotional and mental resiliency by eradicating safe spaces they will be much more capable as
grown adults to handle conflict and their own emotions in a safe manner.
Social Media Search Algorithms
The second major contributing factor is the negative bias of social media search algorithms. It is
well known and documented that “if it bleeds it reads.” This is based on the neurological
principle of survival instilled in our brain. Information relative to death and destruction will
always trump over happy related news because death, anger, and fear are associated with the
brain’s number one priority… survival. When scrolling on your news feed search algorithms are
specifically designed to propagate information that will make you angry and divisive against
your fellow humans.
This is based on your “social media avatar” that companies create to best
advertise materials to you based on your search history. This has profound negative
consequences because the more often we scroll, (thousands of times a day), then the more
neurologically hardwired we become in associating all humans with the types of behaviors we
hate. This is why so many people now more than ever say, “Ugh, I can’t stand humans.” In
reality it is not the entire human race that acts a certain way; however, it is certainly the way it
appears because news feeds want to keep people engaged for as long as possible, and they do
this through negative context.
By holding social media companies accountable to this algorithmic dissention, we can
increase the positive association we have towards one another, thus creating a sense of unity
instead of division. When we are divided as a people, we are more likely to conduct acts of
violence towards and against one another. However, when we have a sense of unity we are
much less likely to do so.
There is a third major factor that contributes to workplace violence and that is the neurological
effects of social isolation. However, that will have to wait until another article before we can
uncover the effects of the neuropeptide, Tachykinin.
In the meantime, remember that adversity creates character and that you should judge people
by the content of their character, not by the content of your social media search algorithms.
These are just a few quick ways we can begin to shift the cultural paradigm of workplace
violence.
Stay Lethal my Friends,
Joe Malone