Asking strangers for things subjects them to anxiety too. Doing it as a form of free therapy is kind of shitty.
There's probably tons of things that can make people anxious. I'm not going to lock myself in the house to avoid making others anxious.
As a socially anxious person myself, I would love for someone to start the conversation with me.
I hear you--I dealt with social anxiety severely for many years and still do to a lesser extent. But nothing about this justifies cynically exploiting people under false pretenses for selfish ends.
If you want to talk to strangers, great! Just don't deceive them for selfish ends.
But the issue of not communicating for selfish ends seems, not possible. Isn't all conversation, in some form, selfish? You're wanting information from other people (how their day was, what they're interested in), you want to vent about a topic, you want to communicate something that excites yourself and feel a connection, you want to get information for certain actionable issues. Even a purely altruistic use of listening to someone in need has its own selfish motivations, to strengthen a friendship, or to feel good about helping someone else (why do we help people in the first place? Does it feel good to follow our own principles?). There's definitely a spectrum there, and us, trying to perceive someone else's intent, is the framing that would make it right/wrong.
In the long run, it's likely worse for society as a whole if people have social anxiety that could be treated. Left untreated, social anxiety can lead to antisocial behaviors and other psychological ailments (e.g. severe depression). If I can respond to a minor request that helps in some way to alleviate this, I don't mind. Part of the issue is related to the degree of the ask. I genuinely wouldn't mind someone asking me for directions, as it's a short-term commitment that is a quick ask (and if it would, I can just decline to help). If anything, most people would feel positively by being able to help another person in a minor way.
I wouldn't even frame it as selfish. Leaving anxiety untreated can cause behavior that can be seen as selfish down the road, while actively seeking to treat it via minor requests can help one be in a better position to help others down the road.
Challenging your own anxiety - and breaking out of your shell - should not be part of some group exercise. The article implies that a group of people were let loose with instructions to bother people:
> Once we got downtown and the exercise officially began, I achieved slightly above my own expectations, which were fairly low. I approached maybe 12-15 people total, in an hour and a half. (Some of the others reported approaching two or three times that number.)
:/
He doesn’t even want these things. May I try on your sunglasses? Can I have a taste of your ice cream?
I guess they set the bar low to encourage the experimenters. “Don’t worry you can ask for anything — ask for a dollar! Borrow their newspaper!”
I would be more open to it if they had done some thinking. What’s something you genuinely need? Go ask for it. But I guess that’s not as simple. This is just street side IRL spam. Can I have those plastic flowers that I don’t want by which I mean can I waste your time with a nonsense game so I fresh content for my blog?
It’s also fundamentally selfish: “ask random strangers to do you favors”
Why not go out into the world and ask if you can do favors? Find a homeless guy or gal. Ask if he wants your shoes. Ask if she needs a dollar. Then you at least anticipate finding people who welcome partition in your psychological experiment.
From the article: "Examples would be asking for their newspaper, or asking for a few dollars, or a phone number, or to try on their shoes. Or going into a store and asking for some free food. [...] I asked for a number of newspapers. I asked to take the plastic flowers from a storefront. I asked to borrow board games from the board game store. I asked to climb a ladder that a construction worker was setting up – and he let me!"
For what it's worth, the food sample and plastic flowers requests are made from businesses, were the requests aren't too unreasonable (samples are normal to ask where I live, and the flower request can be paid back with repeat business). However, I admit that the sunglasses request was strange (along with the suggestion to try someone's shoes).
I like the spirit behind asking if you can do others favors, but I predict it might weaken the exercise. The behavior is targeting a reluctance to ask for help and favors from others when it counts (it's important for long-term wellbeing to have a balance between taking and giving, versus just giving). It's easier to get rejected when asking to help another person, versus when facing rejection when doing something for yourself (e.g. applying to a job or opportunity).
On the ice cream, I was referring to this catchy tune and Apple advertising:
Enjoy!