As of early March, social media feeds have become a stream of videos showing air
strikes across the Middle East, as tensions rise between the United States, Israel
and Iran. Clips range from travellers in the UAE showing first-hand footage of
hearing bombs intercepted to questioning whether flights will continue to run, to
footage of buildings reduced to rubble and civilians fleeing destruction.
These videos circulate rapidly across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X and
Facebook, where thousands of viewers inevitably turn to the comment sections. Yet
amid expressions of shock or concern, one question recurs: “Will I still be able to go
away next week?”
It’s a simple question. But when it appears beneath videos of missile strikes and
collapsing buildings, it raises an uncomfortable one of its own: how has war become
something we process through the lens of our own inconvenience?
The question isn’t necessarily cruel. In fact, it’s deeply human. When confronted with
global events, many of us instinctively ask how they will affect our own lives.
Comments asking about flight cancellations, holiday worries, travel insurance or
airport closures are therefore almost inevitable. Yet it is the comfortable placement of
these questions beneath videos of destruction and tragedy that feels unsettling.
Social media allows both to exist side by side. It spreads awareness of conflict while
simultaneously exposing the mundane concerns that appear beneath moments of
immense suffering.
Social media has created a new lens into geopolitics, allowing us to see first-hand
footage of air strikes and the struggles of those caught in war. Yet the emotional
impact of this content often gets lost when it is immediately followed by an outfit
video or a travel vlog. In our feeds, war has become just another piece of content.
Constant exposure makes crises feel ordinary, tragedy appears alongside
entertainment and in some ways turns real suffering into a form of spectacle. Over
time, this process is slowly desensitising us to these atrocities.
Social media encourages us to take in global news and understand what is
happening, but it also frames that news through the lens of personal impact.
Questions about flights, holidays or petrol prices are therefore inevitable. Digital
platforms often reinforce this self-centred perspective, as algorithms show us the
world filtered through our own interests and concerns. What becomes concerning is
when individuals prioritise their own worries over others’ experiences or only pay
attention to war when it directly affects them.
Once again, this raises the question: are we becoming desensitised to war? Do
shocking images become normal? Are viewers losing the ability to distinguish what is
real and what is AI-generated? Everything blurs together as crises compete for
attention, and the struggles of different people compete for attention. The treatment
in Gaza gets compared to that in the UAE, and war becomes comparative and then
ultimately scrollable. The more often we encounter conflict in the same space as
entertainment and everyday life, the harder it becomes to process its true scale.
Asking whether flights will still run next week doesn’t mean people don’t care about
suffering elsewhere. But it does reveal something unsettling about how we encounter
war, not as a distant tragedy demanding reflection but as another disruption in the
rhythm of our everyday lives. The crisis in the Middle East spans decades, yet it
becomes real only when people see how close it comes to affecting their personal
lives.