How do we protect ourselves from becoming desensitized to horrific news?

This is the habituation of general trends, situations and events that should never become “normal”. Some may call this type of habit “dullness of feeling” or taming it.

Looking at the war, whether in Ukraine or Gaza, we find that the traumatic events at the beginning of those conflicts were “new and unexpected,” two elements that psychologists say attract the attention of the mind.

But over time, as the media continued to cover wars, their news no longer made headlines in countries like the United States, and news of these wars no longer came up in the conversations of intellectuals.

Unfortunately, when war lasts for months or years, research indicators indicate that a full week of fighting did not receive the follow-up and attention that the first day of war received.

This dullness of feeling applies to daily life matters. Young urbanites who grew up with violence are more receptive to the idea of ​​becoming accustomed to scenes of violence than others.

For example, people were greatly expressing concern about Covid-19 at the beginning of its spread, even though death rates from infection were still low. What is strange is that people were expressing less concern about the disease itself when death rates rose.

A study indicates that people who live in countries less exposed to the negative effects of climate change see its danger as less than others do.

Another study shows that a person can control himself even for negative behavior: for example, when a person lies and lies repeatedly in order to get more money, his lies become bigger and bigger over time, then the activity of the parts associated with feelings in this person’s brain decreases.

Researchers have concluded that the more we do something, even the things we know deep down to be wrong, makes us less concerned with our feelings about that thing.

All you have to do is be exposed to anything a lot, and you’ll end up getting used to it, even if it’s bad.

Of course, there are advantages to such a feeling of habituation: to some degree, humans need the ability to adapt to new circumstances and situations, no matter how difficult they are.

It would not have been possible for human beings to succeed to a great degree, or at least they would not have been able to control their feelings and succeed in devising ways to solve problems, imagine, and create, if they had been condemned to live in an atmosphere charged on all sides with shocks and causes of anxiety on a permanent basis.

But there are clear drawbacks to the feeling of habit, for example, that this ability to adapt may represent one of the reasons for the difficulty that humans find in confronting what social scientists call “slow violence.” These disasters that occur suddenly make it difficult to comprehend the extent of the damage caused. I caused it months or perhaps years ago.

Habituation or insensitivity can also cause the cycle to continue indefinitely. A study on urban violence revealed that participants were more likely to adopt violence as a permanent behavior if they believed it was normal behavior.

However, this also applies to larger and more complex issues. If someone doesn’t see climate change as an important issue, what is the incentive for them to do anything about it? If this person’s awareness of humanitarian disasters declines, is he expected to worry about them or donate to charitable organizations?

Regarding media follow-up, there are two questions: How can the media cover a topic without contributing to dulling the public’s feelings about this topic? As an intelligent or expert follower, how can you receive the news in a way that does not make you prey to the same danger?

Researchers are studying the impact of exposure to the same news over and over again on the recipient. One study found that news recipients were more likely to be bothered by news coverage, and even more likely to avoid it, when they felt it became repetitive.

The issue is not that people are looking for something new, but rather that people feel upset when they realize that nothing is changing or improving, according to the researchers.

This is a worrying point; There are various issues whose ignoring leads to the consolidation of the existing situation and the forces responsible for it. For example: If no one is talking about an issue such as climate change, how can institutions and governments take steps to deal with that issue?

This may mean that the less progress leaders make on an issue, the more upset people will be about news about that issue.

In theory, this may lead to an economy in covering issues, and it may also mean that any efforts to make progress on an issue could lead to failure.

There’s the other problem, which is especially common when following news reports of other people’s suffering: If we feel too upset about what we’re seeing, it can lead to burnout and a desire to quit watching altogether.

So, what can we do? How can we keep abreast of events, without reaching the point of exhaustion or insensitivity? How do we follow the many issues that the world is going through today, and balance between refusing to become accustomed to them and continuing to carry out our duties successfully?

Regarding following the news, researchers suggest following the news more carefully, at more specific times, when we feel that a particular crisis is occupying our thoughts.

In addition to the importance of news being fresh, I also suggest making sure to keep abreast of developments, and also ensuring that the media feed received is diversified, so to speak.

Even if the topic you want to learn more about is a specific topic or a specific crisis, you should not be limited to one media window or even to one media outlet.

If you follow news of the war in Gaza, do not limit yourself to following breaking news headlines; Rather, search for foreign political analyses, articles written from a personal perspective, watch documentaries, listen to audio books, or read poetry. Above all, be sure to follow the narratives of both sides of the war, and not limit yourself to the narrative of one side.

Now, what about our tendency to adapt to circumstances that directly affect us? Even those circumstances that we should not accept to look at as “normal”?

The first step is to realize that such taming for the sake of habit occurs anyway. Try to think for a minute: What are the things that you are used to, whether in your home, in your community, or in your country, even though you would not want to get used to them?

Only then, can you develop an action plan. Here, some researchers suggest that “slow violence” be met with “slow resistance,” or with “slow nonviolence,” including carrying out daily actions that gradually increase, provided that these actions are as simple as sharing information on a specific topic.

The researchers suggest that people try to create what can be called an “emotional distance” between them and the circumstances in which they live or observe them so that they can see them with different eyes. If there is something that you do not like in your country and you begin to feel accustomed and numb to it, try talking to someone else who lives in a different country, or read about how this same thing that you do not like was dealt with in another country.

Perhaps above all, we should keep in our minds one fact, which is that the world throughout history has always been full of horrific events, some of which continued for decades and perhaps centuries until people thought they were impossible to solve and that they were a reality that was impossible to change, and that they must adapt to them and “get used to them.” ” one way or another.

But what happened is that it changed, and so the circumstances that we do not want to become part of our children’s future, or our own future, can also change.