I remember talking after school with a few friends and one of my teachers one day when a topic came up: social media. It started simply, kids and teens are spending more time on social media and their phones trying to get the perfect picture, or the perfect caption to get the most likes, shares, and clicks.

But someone else in our group had a harrowing story to tell. I’ll call her Ellie. Ellie was a recent transfer student from the not-so-fun NYC, and boy, did she have a story to tell.

There was a moment in the late hours of the day, in a moderately populated place of the city, when a woman was being kidnapped. Ellie told me she was walking home when she saw the clustered circle of people surrounding a blue minivan, all with their cameras up. No one bothered to help. Most, if not all of them, planned to post the video on social media. Ellie called the police. 

Due to the large crowd of people, it took officers several minutes to shove the crowd out of the way, but by that point, the man had already gotten back in his van and fled the scene, leaving a traumatized woman in his hurry to get away.

Ellie left shortly after she called, but she said that she saw several videos of the altercation, including one with a caption that cussed out the one who called the cops to begin with. Ellie was even able to find one of the videos of the altercation on TikTok later on, and you can see that no one is trying to help. It’s terrifying. Just imagine someone trying to kidnap you, or do something unthinkable to you, but instead of helping, all you see are people recording you, trying to get the perfect angle.

Now, of course, I study psychology and social situations sometimes, and I’ve heard some people pitch the bystander effect. In case you haven’t heard of it, I’ll summarise it. The bystander effect is when a group of people sees someone in distress, and everyone expects someone else to help, so they walk away without helping in the expectation that someone else will give aid to the distressed person. But I don’t think this is the case. It could be argued, sure, but not well. No situations that I’ve ever researched or seen involve everyone recording. The bystander effect is even people actively ignore the distressed person, not record it and pay attention to it.

So what can we do? Honestly, nothing. At least, that’s how it seems at first. You can spread the word, for starters. Keep people in the know about situations like this one. Write to newspaper columns about it to raise awareness. There are attempted kidnappings every single day. Some are successful. The first 24 hours of a disappearance are the most crucial to finding the victim alive, but if we can stop the kidnapping altogether, then those next 24 hours can be used to put the perpetrator behind bars. Stay strong, stay aware.