Is social media diminishing our sense of personal responsibility?

Posted By Sarah Jorgensen on Nov 4, 2014 | 0 comments

Over the weekend, a 26-year old Baltimore woman named Gabrielle Wathen celebrated her birthday. At the end of the night, she took an Uber home. Because it was Halloween and demand for cars was high, Uber was under surge pricing. Despite the fact that a note unmistakeably alerting you surge pricing is in effect pops up in the app before you can call an Uber during a period of surge, Ms. Wathen took the ride anyway and was charged more than $362 for a 22-minute ride home. The next morning, she lamented being unable to pay her $450 rent and took to Instagram and crowdfunding site GoFundMe to raise awareness and ask for help.

Source.

The GoFundMe page has since been removed and Ms. Wathen’s Instagram has been made private, but here’s what it said:

Last night was Halloween. Great time. Today is my 26th birthday. Not so great time. I live in Baltimore and went out with my friends to celebrate my birthday at midnight. When 3 AM rolled around, I suggested we take an Uber hole to avoid drunk driving (#responsibility/#MADD).  I live 22 minutes , tops, from the party I was leaving.

When I awoke this morning, I heard a friend talking about how outrageous Uber rates were the night before (9x original rate). I checked my bank account to, unbeknownst to me, I see a charge for $362. Not only is it my 26th birthday, it is rent day. My rent is $450 and I can no longer pay it today due to this completely outrageous charge.

I have had little to no luck in disputing this transaction.

I waitress at two restaurants and freelance for a City Paper. I worked incredibly hard this week to be able to enjoy my birthday this weekend. This misunderstanding has cost me 80% of the funds I have to my name (embarrassingly so) and I spent a good two hours of my birthday crying over it.

I feel taken advantage of and cheated by the Uber name. $367 for a 20 minute ride should never be justified, even on Halloween.  Please donate even just $1 if you think this is utter and complete bullshit and also hilarious and very, very depressing at the same time.

Thanks for the ride, Muhammed.

I’m not here to defend Uber. I think their surge pricing charges are sometimes out of control. But, in situations where prices are surging too high to be acceptable for me and my budget, I assess the situation, weigh my options, and generally choose to find a regular cab, suck it up and take Metro, or bikeshare home. The fact that Ms. Wathen did not do the same indicates to me that she was either too drunk or too dumb to take personal responsibility for her decisions and how they might impact other aspects of her life–like being able to pay rent. Her failure to complete a simple, adult activity of assessing her options and associated risks in this situation spun into a torrent of woe-is-me platitudes on her GoFundMe page. If I were to re-write parts of it, it would read like this:

– “When 3AM rolled around, I suggested we take an Uber to avoid drunk driving (#responsibility / #MADD)” (I’ll include these hashtags to generate some sympathy; I was just trying to be #responsible!)

– “unbeknownst to me” my bank account was charged the amount I agreed to when I accepted an Uber at 9x surge pricing and took a 22-minute ride.

– “My rent is $450 and I can no longer pay it due to this completely outrageous charge” , which I agreed to by continuing to use the app.

– “I have had little to no luck in disputing this transaction” because I tacitly agreed to the surge pricing fees and am unwilling to admit it is completely, 100% my fault I got into this situation.

– “This misunderstanding” that isn’t actually a misunderstanding at all. In fact, your misuse of the word ‘misunderstanding’ is similar to Alanis Morisette’s misuse of the word ‘ironic.’

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This is an alarming trend: people are failing to take personal responsibility for their situations and using the generosity of others to fix their mistakes or fund activities that are either optional, foreseeable, or both.

This trend is becoming increasingly common. We are seeing people use crowdfunding sites to fund things like honeymoons, personal enrichment classes, and more… And the problem isn’t just with millennials. A Wall Street Journal piece highlights a 55-year old woman named Deborah Behrens, who recently crowdfunded a trip to Italy in light of a layoff. Inspired by Eat, Pray, Love, she pitched it to friends saying it “wasn’t a vacation or all fun, games, and gelato.” Despite some parts of her trip looking exactly like a vacation, she says the primary purpose has been a “search for what’s next.”

A friend recently posted a link to her boyfriend’s GoFundMe page on Facebook. Apparently he decided he wants to go to medical school and needs to take post-bacc classes to qualify. Already saddled with 40 thousand dollars in undergraduate debt, he’s hoping people can help him out a little while he looks for a part-time job:

Hi, my name is XX. I worked hard and lived cheaply to pay what I could for my undergrad education. I’m still inundated with nearly 40 thousand dollars in debt.

I don’t get it.

If I wanted to go on vacation, I’d save up for it. If I wanted to take a class, I’d save until I could afford it. If I were planning a wedding, I would talk to my partner about how we could save for our honeymoon and, if necessary, postpone it until sometime after the wedding when we were able to replenish our finances. At the very least, if I were attending a post-bacc program, I’d actually FIND a part-time job–rather than just saying I was looking–before asking anyone for additional help. (I’m currently in grad school and racking up some student debt myself. It has never once occurred to me to ask strangers on the Internet to help alleviate some of my graduate debt burden.)

Someone in the comment section of the Wall Street Journal piece asked what the difference is between crowdfunding and panhandling. In many cases, I’d say there is no difference. When funding a personal activity or expense that will in no way benefit others, crowdfunding seems like digital panhandling. Somehow, asking strangers for money from behind a screen has become more socially acceptable than standing on a street corner. This can be contrasted, of course, with a crowdfunding campaign that DOES have something in it for the donors (like Kickstarter, where different levels of funding generally get you a thank you gift in kind once the funding goal is met) or in situations where the majority of donated funds go to charity, like Team in Training. But what are Gabrielle Wathen’s crowdfunders getting? The satisfaction that they helped an adult pay her rent because she made irresponsible decisions that precluded her from paying it herself? Am I missing something?

Though I pointed out above that digital panhandling is not strictly a millennial activity, I am a member of Generation Y and fear we are setting poor precedent for personal responsibility. Using crowdfunding to fund personal activities or fix mistakes seems to be highlighting what some researchers say is a growing sense of entitlement. Are we losing our ability and competency to solve our own problems and work for things we want? Are increasing opportunities to ask strangers for money or help under relative anonymity diminishing our sense of individual responsibility and adult autonomy? Are people like Behrens and Wathen using these online crowdfunding sources for one-time “need”-based situations, or are they setting internal precedents for irresponsibility and dependency?

We should be concerned.

UPDATE: Gabrielle Wathen responds to all the Internet haters.