How?

THE PROBLEM

The issue at hand: how to continually engage with global catastrophes that are so big and depressing it feels like there’s nothing we can do about them?

Prime example: Palestine.

I’m ashamed to admit my idleness and complicity. For the majority of the past year, I have felt utterly paralyzed and numb as a result of watching the genocide in Gaza from my phone. I know that feeling doesn’t help anyone. I wanted to understand why I – a privileged citizen of the United States – could feel so stuck and helpless about the atrocities, and what I can do to change how I engage with traumatic events happening across the world. To date, it has often felt like I’m riding a seesaw back and forth between overstimulation of trauma and complete disengagement. Both pretty unhelpful places to be.

I’ve felt this familiar seesaw again in the months days since Trump has been inaugurated. For my sanity and yours, I’ve created this guide for understanding why this pattern happens and how to combat it.

INNER WORKINGS OF THE DOOM LOOP

I’ve noticed something. When a tragic catastrophe begins, I run to social media and subject myself to the notorious doom scroll, seemingly without choice. And I tend to have a hard time unsticking.

Why do we glue ourselves to social media to watch tragedy unfold?

When we don’t know what to do to help, we want to empathize. It feels better to at least acknowledge someone’s suffering than to ignore it, even if neither one leads to actual action being taken. Staying informed provides a (albeit false) sense of control (TIME), which is understandably enticing during global events that most people feel completely out of control of.

But there are also other forces at play. It’s well understood at this point that social media platforms themselves are highly addictive. Even just a small amount of time spent on them makes it harder to resist coming back for more. Compounding this addictiveness is the fact that the more traumatic imagery we consume, the more compelled we are to seek it out in order to maintain the level of activation our brains have become accustomed to (NPR). It’s a vicious cycle.

What are the physiological & psychological effects of doing so?

What makes it a vicious cycle and decidedly not a virtuous one is the negative effects that repeated exposure to traumatic imagery and content have on our brains. Several studies have found that simply viewing traumatic imagery on a device actually traumatizes the viewer. This has been the case for a variety of traumatic events, including 9/11, the 2001 anthrax attacks, the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2014 Ebola crisis. These are all scenarios in which greater exposure to news coverage meant greater likelihood of developing stress, anxiety, and PTSD (BBC). This happens because our brains can’t exactly distinguish the difference between watching something horrible happen on the other side of the world, and it happening right in front of us – and this is especially true for children and other more vulnerable groups (CNN and Michigan Psychology Association). The phenomenon is known as secondary trauma.

“Secondary trauma was, for a long time, largely confined to people involved in the initial event, like first responders. Thanks to technology, however, it can now afflict anyone with a smartphone” (Rand.org).

Importantly, visual images have a stronger lasting power in our brains than things that we read or hear (CNN). When we see traumatic imagery, it can kick into gear our sympathetic nervous system, which generates fight-or-flight responses. This activates our amygdala, which controls our emotional responses. Too much of this activation negatively affects our well-being.

Indeed, a study across 17 countries and 45,000 surveys has found a collective, global decline in people’s wellbeing during and following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine (Durham University). Ukraine was also the first war to be heavily broadcast on TikTok in addition to the milieu of other social platforms blasting us with brutal imagery. The negative emotions we feel looking at this type of content are, of course, normal and appropriate: anxiety, helplessness, dread, guilt, depression, anger. The cognitive dissonance makes our heads spin – we are watching threats to the fabric and ideals of our own society in real time. I think, even if just subconsciously, our brains are saying “If this can happen to them, there, why couldn’t it happen to me, here?” Though our rational minds might fool us into thinking we’re protected by our government or other external circumstances, I don’t believe our deeper psychology can be convinced.

These poor mental health consequences translate directly into physical health effects. Evidence shows that exposure to negative news has the power to raise a person’s heart rate and increase likelihood of cardiovascular problems down the line (BBC).

HOW TO COMBAT IT

How to gain & maintain emotional resilience while engaging with the news

Define your reason for staying informed

For me, being informed should serve the primary purpose of helping me learn how to live more aligned, and to clarify pathways to a better world. I don’t have room for distressing information that I can’t use to inform some action or change.

Define your scope (bound by time & topic), and sources

The firehose of emotionally triggering news will not taper off to a digestible stream. We have to do the labor of funneling ourselves.

Each of us should discern our own answers to these questions: how much do I really need to know? Which topics am I committed to keeping up with, and which can I relax on and let others carry? What information is useful and important to me, and why? How can I carve out pockets of time to recharge and protect myself from distressing news?

Do some soul searching to decide which news sources, platforms, or channels most help serve your above goals (while also providing a balanced, fact-based news diet). Then decide to focus on those.

Pros & cons of engaging with tragedies via social media

With the decision to stay engaged with distant wars, atrocities, and tragedies via social media comes a tangled web of worthwhile considerations.

On one hand, it’s possible to stay engaged and informed on something much longer on social media than through the mainstream 24 hour news cycle. Conventional news outlets must emphasize only the most ‘news-worthy’ developments, an inherently biased call and one which means that for long, drawn-out catastrophes, a lot of day-to-day information falls by the wayside once the story’s shock value starts to diminish. But on social media, anyone with a smartphone is able to report on what’s happening on the ground and garner attention – day-in, day-out. Because of this, social media has a unique, commendable ability to enhance engagement with global wars and conflicts in a way that traditional media can’t. The kind of graphic imagery that can be found on social media, sometimes concealed behind a content warning but often not, simply is not as easily accessible on traditional media outlets. That imagery is not without purpose. Exposure to imagery does increase feelings of empathy, which could be a strong motivator to act. The circulation of graphic real-time imagery comes with hopes of igniting international outcry (Al Arabiya News). Direct war victims with social media access have the means to inform and educate the whole world about what’s happening and the ability to inspire them to act. The audience at one’s fingertips on social media is no small thing, with “an annual growth in social media use of 5.1%, which equates to approximately 7 new users becoming active every second of every day” (SAFMH News Room).

Of course, as demonstrated already, the cons of using social media to stay abreast of global catastrophes are extensive as well. Overexposure to traumatic content leads to feelings of numbness, which is a direct path to apathy. In my experience, staying highly engaged with distressing content online can only last so long before burnout strikes and the pendulum shifts to complete disengagement. Psychological science affirms this: “It’s well-documented that if you stay anxious for a long time, you start to feel sad, which can lead to depression” (CNN). Depressed people are not the most engaged. I’ve come to recognize my own internal cycle that runs alongside the traumatic news cycle: overexposure to traumatic imagery, followed like clockwork by numbness, apathy, inaction, and guilt, which drives me right back to overexposure.

It’s also worth remembering that having this level of access to stimulating and distressing news (read: 24/7 in our pockets and following us everywhere, even to the bathroom) is relatively new. And yet, we don’t need to wait for longitudinal studies to be published, because we already know that “fear, anxiety, and traumatic stress have long-term effects on health and well-being” (CNN).

Turn the bad feelings into action

What motivates positive action?

Different emotions motivate people in different ways. Generally, negative emotions serve to compel us to act in some way. For example, because of the discomfort of guilt, the feeling can incentivize people to contribute positively (Al Arabiya News). Indeed, in the realm of climate distress specifically, research has shown the emotion to be positively associated with increased pro-climate action (Yale Program on Climate Communication).

But when you don’t address your negative emotions head-on through positive actions, the negative emotions fester and grow, eventually making us sick. Humans also aren’t capable of reacting with full rationality when our amygdala is activated (CNN). So, the kind of actions we feel compelled to take in the heat of feeling immense grief might not even be the most effective actions for us to take. And while difficult emotions might jolt us into taking short-term action, it’s not a sustainable source of motivation.

The good news is, turning negative emotions into one positive action might be enough to get the ball rolling toward a more sustainable source of motivation: positive emotions. “Research has found that engaging in climate action can help young people cope with their negative feelings about climate change and experience positive feelings such as hopefulness, determination, and a sense of agency” (Yale Program on Climate Communication). Thus, taking productive actions to counteract our negative emotions can bring about positive emotions, which may in turn more effectively fuel momentum for more action.

Another sanity-saving balm for facing the heaps of distressing global events is other people. One of my favorite studies – Social Support and the Perception of Geographical Slant – shows that our perception of a problem (in the study, how steep a hill looked) becomes more optimistic when we feel we aren’t facing it alone. I can personally attest to the value of processing difficult emotions in community. In 2023, I participated in the Good Grief Network’s 10-step program to metabolize heavy climate-related emotions in a peer-to-peer setting to ultimately build the strength and tools for positive action. Models like this are truly powerful.

Another idea: adopt a dog

This would most likely also help.

WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT

to stay vigilant about emotional resilience to news in these times

Maintaining resilience amidst distressing news is crucial. Mental fortitude is the key to realizing the power we actually do hold – and in empowering and energizing us to take action.

I continue the constant battle with myself to stay off social media as much as possible (for the reasons outlined here, plus several more). To me, the harms outweigh the positives of getting news from there. I’ve found that signing up for a few trusted email newsletters is a healthier and more effective approach for me. It doesn’t leave me traumatized and burnt out in a way that ultimately requires a major news hiatus at all.

Keeping up with a few trusted independent journalists, mainly through Substack, is a happy medium for me. It’s because they aren’t beholden to the sinister motivations of a corporate newsroom, and they’re often more plugged into what’s happening on the ground and on social media, anyway – so I don’t have to be.

And when I do find myself in the midst of a doom spiral of negative emotions in response to the world’s tragedies, I take that as a clear sign to do something tangible. Whether that’s donating to community organizations, signing up for a protest, or attending a supportive community event.