If an elderly man is mugged on a full subway car, or a homeless man lies dying in a puddle of blood, onlookers are more likely to take a cell phone video than jump to assistance.

The “bystander effect,” the inaction of individuals to provide help to someone in need, is being debated this week after a 79-year-old man’s wallet was snatched on the TTC as two-dozen people apparently shrugged their shoulders. In a more alarming incident that occurred last Sunday morning in New York, about 20 people strolled by a homeless person who had been stabbed after attempting to break up a dispute.

This poetic justice highlights one of two main points – that safety trumps intervention– psychologists use to explain the bystander effect. The other being that people often don’t step up because they believe someone else will.

The subway robbery was captured on an iPhone. It was then tweeted and posted on youtube where comments mocked the man’s senility and how funny his face looked as he yelled for help. This never happened. But it is likely that at least a dozen people on that train were more engaged in their phones and Sudoku than the robbery. And it’s not outlandish, no matter how sick, to think of someone turning the incident into viral gold.  

Think back to the picture of the snoozing TTC fare collector. Sure he was actually sleeping, but the photographer just snapped the picture without checking if the collector was suffering.

Most of us have been tossed into real life versions of the bystander experiment. As I was walking to work a couple of weeks ago, obsessing over the minutia of my life, I ignored a homeless man making distressing noises. He was lying sideways with his back facing me. I assumed he was having a terrible nightmare and continued to walk. I then thought about how overwhelmed with guilt I would feel if I later heard this guy had died of cardiac arrest. I turned around and was relieved to find him on his feet and stretching. I was more relieved that I didn’t have to perform first aid on a filthy stranger. This is the darkness of the bystander effect.

Last year, as I walked dazed around my crumpled car in the middle of a Toronto intersection, a dozen cars drove by, some with peoples' faces glued to windows, before anyone offered assistance. My 2000 Toyota Corolla was T-boned by a Hummer running a green. Guess who came to help? A tow truck.

Fear, transferring responsibility, cell phones, and Sudoku are all easier than being a Good Samaritan.  These latest two incidents might prove the bystander effect unshakable in the age of ultimate self-amusement.