In the 1990s, the discovery of “mirror neurons” underlined that we subconsciously mimic each other, down to our tiniest facial expressions. These micro-expressions often escape cognition and are processed solely through simulation. So it follows that the more frozen your face, the less likely you are to clock that someone is anxious or lying to you or quietly amused. And if you’re too frozen to take someone fully in, wouldn’t it be harder for anyone to empathize with you?
“Go for the empathy part.” A strange joke, if you think about it. But what makes the joke land is its kernel of sincerity, the idea that life might be easier, more frictionless, if we weren’t troubled by the feelings of others. We live in an age of self-optimization; is lack of empathy somehow optimal? Does a cruel world require a cold heart and a frozen face?
“It’s fascinating—it seems like a concerted effort to appear airbrushed,” muses 36 North Moore Dermatology founder Evan Rieder, MD, of the intervention-forward, avatar-like aesthetic common on social media. “But I do not believe it’s the result of a conscious attempt to achieve emotional blunting,” he adds. Rieder, who is board-certified in both dermatology and psychiatry, is skeptical of the research—sure, something is happening at a psychological or emotional level when we get Botoxed, but not to a degree that would make a difference in the average person’s life. “It’s been sensationalized,” he says.
And the jury is still out—way out—on Botox’s efficacy as a mood-booster. “We looked closely at all the evidence and didn’t find it compelling,” says Jeff Larsen, professor of psychology and neuroscience at University of Tennessee and the coauthor of a 2021 meta-analysis of studies about Botox’s effect on depression. Sample sizes were small; results were frequently improbable. “When it comes to momentary feelings, 10 seconds, maybe up to a minute, facial expression [for example, smiling] can have a little effect on how I’m feeling,” Larsen says. As far as Botox improving my mood, “you’re better off looking at cute puppy videos on YouTube.”
This effect, too, is fleeting. I cued “30 Minutes of the World’s CUTEST Puppies!” Half an hour later, my mood was about the same. But I did not, could not, frown. This had no perceptible impact on my cheeriness. The boost I got from Botox was that I liked my face a bit better, a result I’d have anticipated without reading umpteen scientific reports. That’s not nothing, but as I said up top, my face was never the problem.
The sense of constant crisis in the news and the developments in AI that are guiding us, rapidly, into terra incognita can make it difficult to see over any horizon beyond next week. And despair, it’s been said, comes of the inability to conceive or construct a future. Hence: ambient dread. For me, at least. But philosophers have long had an antidote for this state of mind: the cocreation of a future by means of a hyperfocus on the present, doing the human stuff no AI will ever be able to do—sharing joy, giving someone a hug. Empathy, in other words. ChatGPT can’t help my elderly neighbor carry her groceries up the stairs. It’s a small thing, but more effective than Botox in quieting my mind and lightening my mood. Care. That’s it. That’s the whole deal. It seems worth trying.
