Social safety surveys

‘Better off than on’. Thus states one of the quotes written on a piece of paper hanging in the living room of my student house. At first glance, this quote seems to confirm all the stereotypes about student nightlife. But no, it’s about the heating. And our gas bill shows that we take this quote to heart.

Like most student houses I know, mine keeps a list of amusing quotes. There are now more than 500, not just from the current residents but from past years too. They are scribbled on notes scattered around the house and collected in a book. Most quotes are only amusing because they’ve been stripped of their original context. ‘You would make a terrible salmon’ is a statement so random that it becomes funny on its own. ‘Maybe we should kidnap the babies’ was once ironically suggested to a housemate who was complaining about the noise from a daycare centre.

The list of quotes shows that context determines the meaning of a remark.

Perhaps that’s why I have my doubts about the posters, mirror stickers, and signs that have appeared all over TU Delft as part of the social safety campaign. They feature quotes like ‘I’ve always been direct, now people feel unsafe’ and ‘They didn’t give me the task, assuming my health condition limits me’. Below them is a QR code leading to the Better TUgether website. If you visit it – and I don’t know how many people actually do – you can take a survey and listen to a podcast.

Missed opportunity: explain with examples for each quote how to improve social safety

This survey asks five questions, the same ones as presented around campus. What do you think? I had to choose between ‘acceptable’, ‘not acceptable’, and ‘I don’t know’. Almost immediately, I found myself struggling with the lack of context. It’s clear that ‘You’re very articulate for someone from your background’ is almost always racist. But ‘I avoid saying someone looks good, fearing it will offend’ (for which the Dutch translation has a different connotation by the way) doesn’t have a straightforward answer.

Compliments are nice to give and receive, so they shouldn’t be banned. At the same time, it’s good if people hold back on the compliments they feel unsure about. That seems like a normal part of social interaction. Many factors influence how a compliment is received – the same words feel different when spoken by a professor than when spoken by a student. So is a compliment acceptable? It depends on the context.

Ironically, the statement ‘I’m afraid someone might take my compliment the wrong way’ actually suggests a level of sensitivity to how one’s words might affect others. And that’s exactly what’s needed to improve social safety.

I clicked through, hoping the survey would give me some insight on what its creators had in mind. But no – after submitting my answers, all I got was ‘Thank you for your time in completing this survey. Your response has been recorded’ (the translation is mine, as the message was only in Dutch). Maybe the podcasts go into more detail, but for the survey, this felt like a missed opportunity. This was the perfect place to include examples or stories explaining how to improve social safety in these situations.

Of course, I appreciate that TU Delft is trying to create a safer environment. But these black-and-white judgments strip the nuance from the conversation. And that nuance is exactly what’s needed to make real progress. Words have meaning, but that meaning is created in interaction – not on a poster.