Visitors to Shanghai Wild Animal Park got a reminder recently: Do not show short videos to Ding Ding, a chimpanzee who has gone viral on social media.

This injunction is in response to the practice of some visitors playing dynamic music on their mobile phones and showing it to the celebrated chimp, with the latter gazing intently at the screen, fully absorbed, occasionally scratching its face.

The zoo explained that such viewing can damage the chimp's eyesight, and make them agitated. The case is more complicated for the animal's inability to articulate its feelings, or wear eyeglasses, if it suffers from poor sight.

A cursory look would suggest that a host of such seemingly benevolent but essentially disruptive human behaviors are adversely impacting a number of other animals.

A wolf in Kekexili, a nature reserve primarily located in Qinghai Province, grew heavily dependent on human handouts after being regularly fed by passing motorists along a road. It began lingering by the roadside, constantly waiting for easy meals, until it was eventually killed in a deadly incident.

At a zoo in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a chimpanzee had gone viral for learning to throw rocks at the viewing crowd, until the zoo stepped in after someone got hurt in this process.

There is something common in these celebrity animals: They have become stars after acquiring traits that, in our interpretation, are human-like. We just tend to view other animals through the lens of homo sapiens because this happened to the animal we know best.

This predilection inclines us to view other animals' behavior in light of our own preference and reality. We tend to pet animals with round face, large eyes and a shout snout, for being baby-like, like a panda. Similarly different animals are invested with different personality just for the sake of their facial characteristics.

In the age of social media, these arbitrary associations are often amplified by deliberately edited videos that play up these supposed human traits, so as to pluck the heart strings of unsuspecting viewers.

We achieve these associations without "consulting" the other animals' inclination.

If addiction to electronic devices has proved to be harmful for human beings, we should be wary of the effects of strident noise and glittering colors on a species long inured to the natural habit.

We might resort to screens and music for amusement, but they might only bring anxiety and bewilderment to a chimpanzee who cannot possibly make sense of these flashing bits and pieces.

The urge to make sport of another species is no different from the rationalization for a circus, where a bear could cycle, monkey learns to balance a ball on its head, or a dolphin can dance, at costs never fully disclosed.

When we meet another species, it is more important to understand how different we are from the other, and we should respect these species for what they are, rather than those attributes, acquired or otherwise, that are interpreted as "human."

Nature has assigned each species a niche in our ecological system, and we should keep a proper distance from each other.