Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Digital empathy


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Noting the nom's final comments (essentially withdrawing the nom), there's clear consensus to keep, but there's also a fair amount of agreement this this needs major rewriting, perhaps turning it into a set index or stub. Nobody explicitly mentioned WP:TNT, but it sounds like that's what we're talking about. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:03, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Digital empathy

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This essay comprises a great deal of original research and synthesis. A GSearch of "Digital empathy" returns one reliable source in the form of a paper in the medical field from 2015 with 18 citations, the remaining results being the name of an unrelated veterinarian clinic, a Medium.com entry, a Wix site, a Forbes.com contributor article, this article, and a couple of articles of like ilk. (LinkedIn, etc.)

The paper is Terry & Cain, 2015 located here. If the concept described therein is notable (and it doesn't seem to be related to the stuff in the Medium and Forbes.com articles), and this article is kept, then the article will have to be cleaned up. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete (without prejudice to it being completely rewritten, properly sourced, and reduced to about a 3rd of its current size.)  Written very much like a term paper (and probably is/was one) and/or synthesis, partly in the creator's  own words, of material harvested from the many sources. See WP:OR.  Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:56, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep It's a valid topic and AfD (still) isn't for cleaning up article quality. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:24, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Asargana96 Thankyou for everyone's suggestions.Please see the edited version, i've made changes based on the feedback. Please review and let me know if more changes need to be made. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asargana96 (talk • contribs) 00:41, 17 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Looking at the sources I can find on the Internet, I am not convinced that "Digital Empathy" is a concrete enough idea to write an article on. Of the 2 reliable sources I found that even mention "digital empathy", one is a scholarly paper that uses the definition this article currently espouses.  The other is the "Handbook of Research on Media Literacy in the Digital Age", which has an entire chapter on "Digital Empathy", but uses such to mean "The cognitive and emotional ability to be reflective and socially responsible while strategically using digital media" with a cite to "Friesem, 2015".  Add that those are the only even semi-reliable sources, and I don't think this concept exists in the public sphere. A more extensive look at scholarly literature might yield an article, but I am not sure it wouldn't be a WP:FRANKENSTEIN. Rockphed (talk) 12:13, 17 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment The current version is much improved, but I still feel like this is a FRANKENSTEIN covering several different topics and might have to be disambiguated if kept. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:29, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment Based of the comment on notability and frankenstien article, I wanted to let the editors know that the concept around digital empathy is well talked about in different aritcles and many opinions are existing around this topic. As wikiepedia is a place for consolidation of existing research, I've touched upon all credible research found on digital empathy and based on my research, Friesam 2015 has extensively researched on digital empathy and has relevant findings, however his concept is different as applied in healthcare, therefore it might be coming off as a frankenstien article. So if somebody else wants to edit and improve it, i'm okay with it. But in my humble opinion, the notability of this topic is well adressed online, just needs to be worked into wikipedia for readers to have an understanding of this newly constructed term.Asargana96 (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is certainly hard to decide. I can see why people here keep call it a Frankenstein's article. One reason for deleting it could be that after 's modification of the article, it no longer contains any actual material. (rv. #916097500) It consists of frame contents only. It does not say what digital emphaty is. But right now, I am thinking if a rename or simply a reinterpretation of the title can affect the content requirement. For instance, an article titled "Wikipedia's ethtics" does not need to describe a unique thing called Wikipedia's ethics. It can simply link to the ethics article and discuss the abundance or lack of online ethics. What I currently recommend is to notify the editors who know about sociology and psychology. They may be able to tell if this subject is worth an encyclopedia article or is a rapidly dated blog post. For example, consider this:"However, the society’s communication patterns are altering, both positively and negatively, as the contemporary culture is characterized by rapid adoption of social and mobile technologies." Will this sentence be true one hundred years from now? "Are altering" is a timed expression. In the end, if all such investigations for eligibility failed, keep it. It does no harm. Sometimes, to decide the impact of one thing, we have to let it run its course. flowing dreams (talk page) 13:36, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:08, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. Here are a list of published peer reviewed journal articles on the topic:
 * 1) "The emerging issue of digital empathy.(SPECIAL ARTICLE)(Report)", Terry, Christopher ; Cain, Jeff, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, May, 2016, Vol.80(4)
 * 2) "Situational determinants of cognitive, affective, and compassionate empathy in naturalistic digital interactions", Powell, Philip A ; Roberts, Jennifer, Computers in Human Behavior, March 2017, Vol.68, pp.137-148
 * 3) "For an inclusive innovation. Healing the fracture between the human and the technological in the hypercomplex society", Dominici, Piero, European Journal of Futures Research, Jan 2018, Vol.6(1), pp.1-10 ("also a refer- ence, with an approach that absolutely fails to convince me – to “critical thinking”, where the oxymoronic term “digital empathy” is actually")
 * 4) "The need for digital intelligence",Chawla, Dalmeet, Nature, Oct 4, 2018, Vol.562(7725), pp.S15-S16 ("importance of their digital identity, privacy management, their online footprint, critical thinking, digital empathy, cybersecurity, cyberbullying")
 * 5) "Smart Humanitarianism: Re-imagining Human Rights in the Age of Enterprise", Dale, John ; Kyle, David, Critical Sociology, September 2016, Vol.42(6), pp.783-797 ("spawning an increase in compassionate empathy. New projects to cultivate ‘digital empathy’ seek to develop ways of transforming our electronically mediated...")
 * 6) "Psychopathic traits and social anxiety in cyber-space: A context-dependent theoretical framework explaining online disinhibition", Antoniadou, Nafsika ; Kokkinos, Constantinos M ; Markos, Angelos, Computers in Human Behavior, October 2019, Vol.99, pp.228-234


 * And here is a list of other publications:

These are just a selection of sources I found in my university library's database. Passes WP:GNG. Stubify but not delete if needed.4meter4 (talk) 03:18, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Emotions, Technology, and Behaviors, Yonty Friesem, Boston : Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier, 2016, the entire second chapter is devoted to Digital Empathy pages 21-45
 * 2) "Digital empathy is key to tackling the robo adviser question", Wise, John, FTAdviser.com, Dec 11, 2018
 * 3) "Aurorasa Coaching launches Project Empathy Social Skills Training, the first holistic digital empathy training with Dr. Mark Goulston". M2 Presswire, Aug 17, 2018
 * 4) "Digital Empathy and Fetchit Announce Partnership", PR Newswire, Feb 19, 2019
 * 5) "Empathy: A must-have in digital marketing!", Point-of-Purchase, August 16, 2012
 * 6) "Forget IQ. Digital intelligence will be what matters in the future", Claudio Cocorocchia, Pakistan & Gulf Economist, Feb 18, 2018, Vol.37(7) ("different countries, found that over half were exposed to at least one online-related threat. Such threats include reduced digital empathy - leading to...")
 * 7) "Artificial Intelligence-Changing Lives", Cynthia John, Open Source FOR You, March 4, 2019 ("we are doing or what we intend to do with the given a suggestion. The time is not far when machines will have empathy too, digital empathy."}
 * Comment in light of the above discussion I no longer believe that this article should be deleted. Perhaps it can be stubbified or turned into a set index article if the term covers multiple concepts. It still needs a great deal of cleanup, but this is not the forum for that. I do not think this counts as a "nominator withdrawal" in the sense of speedy keeping as too much good-faith discussion has occurred and I wouldn't want to short circuit any more, however I'd like to "strike" my implicit delete !vote. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.