I was on Tiktok recently, scrolling through my feed, when I came across a video of the Nepal plane crash. It showed the plane flying low over houses, and then the sound of the crash could be heard in the background. I quickly navigated to the “show fewer videos like this” option. A few scrolls later and another video appeared, warning people that a passenger had live-streamed the crash, and that it was circulating on social media. The videos can still be found if one has the desire to search for them. I do not.
I did something I try not to do: I checked the comments. There were dozens and dozens saying they had watched the video and wished that they hadn’t. Some were even asking to be tagged in the video so they could see for themselves.
It led me to question: are we becoming desensitized? The answer is yes.
First, desensitization means that responses to a “stimulus” are lessened over repeated exposure to that stimulus. If you stick a person in a room and pop a balloon, at first, they’ll be surprised, but the more balloons that are popped, the less they react. The more we are exposed to violence or tragic events, the less we react to them.
You can see it happen with COVID-19. I’m guilty of it myself. Research done by Hannah Stevens, Yoo Jung Oh, and Laramie D. Taylor, examined the public’s level of anxiety related to COVID-19 in various tweets related to news articles. They found that the level of anxiety or stress in tweets rose dramatically in response to articles that had a low death toll, versus a low level anxiety compared to articles with high death tolls. They decided on the level of anxiety based on word choice.
The longer COVID went on, the more desensitized to it we became. The same is true for shootings. At the time I’m writing this there have been 39 mass shootings in the U.S. Yet, if you were to tell someone this number, the first thing they’re likely to say is: ‘I’m not surprised’. I know it was the first thing I thought. I’m not surprised, it could have been so much worse, and those poor people. And then I moved on because I know there will be more coming.
Stevens, Oh, and Taylor mention that research on desensitization often focuses on depictions of fictional violence (movies, games, literature, podcasts), but it’s also been shown in response to repeated exposure to violence in news, hate speech, and “sexually explicit internet content” — they add though that the last finding has mixed support.
There’s a reason I don’t watch Criminal Minds or Law and Order: Special Victims Unit anymore. It’s the same reason Mandy Patinkin left Criminal Minds. The emotional burden became too much. I see enough violence in real life, I don’t need to consume it constantly in my media. We can also look back at research that was done in the 70s and 80s: researchers found that children who watched hours of violence on TV, were often more aggressive and apathetic. In fact, some of those children, when observed into adulthood, were more likely to be arrested for crimes than the children who didn’t consume a lot of violence. There’s a reason there are ratings on certain media. Remember, correlation is not causation; this is just one of many things that could and can play a factor in adult behavior.
The fact of the matter is this: we see violence and most of us don’t react. Most of us actually seek out the violence. A good example of this are true crime podcasts. A popular one, one that I used to watch myself, was a woman who would do her makeup while describing graphic murders. Pay attention to the attitudes, the tone, the conversations, when the hosts speak about these deaths. Often, the victim’s family comes forward and speaks on how they hate how their loved ones have become entertainment for others.
I don’t have any answers, only questions. When does it end? How can we fix it? Can we consume all of this violence and tragedy without letting it desensitize us? Research shows that we can’t fix it and we aren’t immune to it. I desperately hope that research just hasn’t caught up to it yet.
Humanity is a fragile thing I’m afraid.
Contact Carrie at: newsroom@news-banner.com
