The Empathy Recession: Why Empathy Needs Attention in a Digital World
Practicing Empathy and the Surprising Role of AI
A friend texted me last week to ask for help with a work problem. I can see the anxiety in every sentence now that I've re-read. The way they over-explained things, made fun of themself, and buried the real question under layers of context.
But at the time, I completely missed it. I quickly and efficiently responded with some straightforward advice, not acknowledging how vulnerable it was to reach out.
I didn't realize the chance I missed until I sat down to write this.
That moment made me realize that I'm not the only one going through this. In our digital age, many of us think that empathy is fading away due to endless scrolling, AI chatbots, and emoji-filled responses.
But new research shows something surprising: empathy is making a comeback after years of decline.
The catch is... every day, our ability to connect with others in a real way is being attacked.
And as AI gets better at pretending to be compassionate, the real question isn't whether empathy is going away, but whether we're ready to protect and grow it in a world where even machines can fake it.
Is Empathy Making a Comeback?
For years, headlines warned of a "empathy recession," especially among young people growing up surrounded by digital noise. We saw teenagers pick screens over talking to each other, saw online bullying get worse, and felt like our ability to connect deeply was somehow fading.
But here's what we missed: a major study by researchers at Indiana University's Lilly Family School of Philanthropy showed that young Americans' empathy has been steadily rising since 2008. The research indicates that younger generations are becoming more compassionate, not less.
This rebound teaches us something very important: empathy is not a limited resource that is lost to technology. It is a capacity that changes based on social and cultural forces. It can be made stronger or weaker, grown or left to whither.
But before we get too excited, we need to face a harder truth: even though empathy may be improving at a societal level, our ability to connect with others on a personal level is under attack by technology all the time.
The Slow, Passive Erosion
The threat to empathy isn't some dramatic tipping point; it's the compounding effect of small changes over time.
I've noticed it in everyday moments:
How I'd write quick replies to emotionally heavy messages without really taking in what someone was saying
How I'd see a headline about a tragedy and immediately scroll past it, my brain already moving on to the next dopamine hit
How I'd have trouble focusing when people took too long to explain their feelings
The research backs up my experience.
Online interactions lack the nonverbal symphony that carries most of the emotional meaning. The slight pause before speaking, the way someone's shoulders drop when they're relieved, and the micro-expressions that show vulnerability.
We're trying to read people's emotions through a digital keyhole, and then we wonder why we can't see the whole picture.
Researchers call this "thin empathy": quick, shallow emotional responses that seem meaningful but aren't.
I realized that I had been doing this all the time: seeing someone's carefully curated highlight reel, reacting with a heart emoji, and pretending that gesture communicated a real understanding.
At the same time, the algorithm was feeding into my existing beliefs, creating what have been called "echo chambers" that make it harder to really understand perspectives different than our own.
And this constant flow of information has a way of numbing us and creating "empathy fatigue."
When we see endless suffering, injustice, and crisis all compressed into an endless feed of bite-sized updates, our emotional systems go into protective mode.
We become numb not because we don't care, but because caring about everything means caring deeply about nothing.
I began to refer to this as "empathy drift": a slow, virtually undetectable loss of our own emotional intelligence and our ability to connect with others.
We don't lose the ability to empathize; we just forget how to do it over time.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
As the world rushes to adopt AI, empathy isn't just a nice thing to have; it's what keeps us human.
Machines are great at processing data and getting the optimizing results, but they can't understand how someone else feels. They can't hold space for grief, share real joy, or offer a healing presence.
Empathy is not just about understanding feelings. It’s about feeling the understanding.
Empathy is the foundation of any meaningful relationship. It's what makes teammates trust each other, parents and children bond, and leaders and teams connect.
It turns a group of people into a community, a workplace into a place of belonging, and a conversation into a moment of understanding between two people.
Without empathy, we risk becoming islands of efficiency in an ocean of isolation—productive, perhaps, but profoundly alone.
The Traditional Toolkit Still Works, But It's Not Enough
The good news is that we know how to build empathy.
Face-to-face interaction is still the gold standard. It's those unfiltered moments when we can truly connect with the full emotion another experiences.
Active listening, in which we not only hear words but also their meaning, is still a critical capacity.
In addition, mindfulness practices help us become more aware of our own feelings, which helps us to recognize those feelings in others.
And it turns out, empathy is a learned skill.
Research has proven out that programs that teach emotional intelligence show remarkable results. Simple exercises like imagining the situation from another's viewpoint can measurably increase empathy.
The Digital Divide
The problem is many of these practices don't match the digital reality we live in.
No one teaches us how to listen with empathy over a screen or how to write a text message that shows we care.
Meanwhile we are having hundreds or even thousands of digital interactions each day. Emails with coworkers, texts with family, and social media conversations with friends.
Each of these is an opportunity to show empathy and build connection, but we lack the skills to navigate them with emotional intelligence.
Every day, we miss chances to connect more deeply because we don't know how to turn empathy into text and pixels.
But here's the good news: AI, the technology some worry will replace human connection, is actually becoming a helpful tool for building it—precisely because it can meet us where we are in our digital lives.
AI as an Unlikely Partner for Empathy Training
When I started digging into the research on AI and empathy, it challenged my preconceived notions about technology's role in human connection.
The Research
A study published in Communications Psychology found that people rated AI responses as more compassionate and responsive than those from humans, including trained experts.
Remarkably, this preference held even when told they were reading AI-generated responses.
AI-generated empathy was not only competitive with human empathy; it frequently excelled in the language of care.
In an earlier study published in Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers used AI to coach volunteers in real time in peer-to-peer mental health support, suggesting better ways to rephrase their messages that would make them feel more accepted and supported. The results were surprising:
A 20% rise in conversational empathy overall
A nearly 40% rise among those who had trouble being empathetic before
AI analyzed thousands of compassionate responses and distilled patterns that make communication more caring.
But here's the most critical insight:
AI isn't replacing human empathy; it's teaching us to express it better.
My Own Experience
Based on the research, I started experimenting with this myself.
When I got a very charged email from someone earlier this week, I asked AI to help me come up with a more caring response because I was having trouble doing so. Not to write it for me, but to help me see what real support might sound like.
The AI told me to acknowledge their specific challenge before offering them solutions, use "I" statements to avoid prescriptive, and ask what kind of help would be most useful instead of assuming I knew.
My response went from "problem solving" to "relationship building."
It wasn't just that the message was different; it was also how the process made me slow down and think about what he was experiencing.
In Our Organizations
Schools are now using AI-powered platforms and virtual reality simulations to teach kids how to see things from other people's points of view and how to be aware of their own emotions. This has led to measurable improvements in student outcomes.
Companies like Bank of America are using AI to help their workers get better at talking to customers and practicing tough conversations.
A clear pattern is emerging: AI is great at finding the language patterns and communication strategies that help people connect, and then teaching us how to use those tools.
The Principle of Partnership
AI doesn't create empathy; it amplifies our existing capacity. The technology sees patterns in compassionate communication and helps us apply those patterns.
AI works best as a training partner, not as a replacement. It can help us practice more empathetic responses, suggest more caring language, and provide us feedback. But it can't feel what we feel or build the real relationships that sustain us.
The best uses of AI combine it with human judgment and practice in the real world. We use the technology to build and develop skills; and then we apply those skills in our real-life relationships with people. We use AI's pattern recognition ability to learn the language of empathy, and then we speak that language with our own voice and heart.
This is empathy augmentation, not empathy automation.
What I'm Learning to Do Differently
It's not about picking between digital and analog, or AI and human connection. It's about being purposeful with all of our tools.
With Digital Technology:
I've started using AI as a practice partner, not a replacement.
Rather than fire off a pointed email, I'll put my draft into ChatGPT and ask, "How could this be more empathetic while still being direct?" The AI often points out when I'm being defensive or when I could acknowledge the other person's perspective more clearly. Then I rewrite the message in my own words, using what I learned.
With Human Connection:
I'm actively looking for more high-touch interaction opportunities, even though it "just sending a text" would be easy.
More and more often, I'm trying to put my phone in another room to create space for real connection withy my kids. It's not because I'm against technology; it's because I've noticed that I listen better when I'm not subconsciously waiting for the next notification.
I'm constantly working on "active listening": thinking about what I hear before I respond. At first, it feels awkward, but it creates moments of connection I otherwise may have missed.
With Myself:
I am learning to be more aware of my own feelings by doing quick "empathy check-ins" while I write in my journal in the morning.
I try to stay conscious of "empathy fatigue": feeling emotionally numb when I read the news or automatically scroll past content about suffering instead of feeling moved by it.
When I see these patterns, I make a point of taking breaks from information overload and try to be curious about what other people are experiencing instead of rushing to judgement.
It's still a work in progress. Some days I get it right, and other days I fall back into old habits. But I'm learning that empathy, like any other skill, gets better the more you practice.
The Future of Human Connection
It would be easy to keep passively connecting through emojis and comments on one another’s social feeds. Until one day, someone needs us, and we answer with silence.
We're living through a strange paradox…
As AI gets better at imitating human empathy, the value of real human connection grows.
AI can show us how to be empathetic, but it can't replace empathy's authenticity and heart.
The research showing empathy's resurgence gives me hope that this capacity won't be lost—it's something we can learn, train, and recover.
I'm hopeful that, both as individuals and as organizations, we'll choose to cultivate empathy actively, using every tool at our disposal—including AI—to become more connected, more understanding, and more fully human.
In a world where machines can simulate compassion, the humans who thrive will be those who embody it. That's not a threat to worry about—it's a reminder of what should keep us uniquely human.
Later this week, I’ll share some practical tips on using AI to practice empathy, so please subscribe.
Know anyone struggling with how to interpret that last text message or send a more thoughtfully crafted email?
How are you practicing empathy in an increasingly digital world?
Great article on a topic we should all be paying attention to. It really resonated me as someone who has grown in empathy through therapy, personal experience, and struggles. Some people just need help and guidance in order to show more empathy. I believe it can be learned and it's a muscle that needs regular exercise to stay in shape. I liked your nuanced approach, including AI where appropriate. Thank you.
Well written piece. I go deeply into this in book-My Dinner with Monday during a real conversation with the AI unit.
But let’s not confuse simulated empathy with the real thing.
When it comes to empathy, humans have dropped the ball. And in doing so, they’ve made it easier for AI to replace them. Not because AI is good at empathy, but because we’ve become bad at it.
But here's the distinction. And it's an important one. AI doesn’t generate empathy. It just mimics it.
Teaching people to use AI as an “empathy mirror” while helpful in short term critical cases, is disastrous in the long run. When you outsource your empathy to an AI, you don't improve your human connection. You atrophy it.
Ironically, it took a conversation with an AI for me to realize that.