The news app beeps with a recent story. Status updates and stories inundate Facebook, Instagram, Twitter feeds. Two or three weeks pass, and the story wanes to something to scroll past or simply ignore.
This cycle isn’t something we haven’t seen before, and everyone’s automatic answer to why such a phenomenon occurs is ‘desensitization’. But why do our emotional responses customarily become lackluster as our exposure to violence in the media increases? In an article by The Cut, Charles Figley, professor of social work at Tulane University, mentions how in response to reading about a crisis, “people adapt, they adjust, they try to look on the bright side.” As a result, when we experience sadness, discomfort or anger after reading the violence infused news, we “figure out a way to lessen that pain, lessen our emotionality and compartmentalize.” We’re essentially programed to make ourselves feel better. Inevitably, we distance ourselves from the content we absorb, and become less concerned with that particular matter.
Science can prove this too. According to Dr. Elaine Cox, the Chief Medical Officer of Riley Children’s Health in Indianapolis, “the anterior cingulate cortex in the frontal lobe” which “moderates empathy,” will “decrease the stimulus to feel empathy” with “repeated exposure” to violence. The expected outcome of our behavior then traces the following pattern: we read what’s on our screens, feel upset for a short while, then continue with our lives, feeling relieved that we weren’t directly affected by the tragedy.
This cycle can also be found through data on Google Trends, a platform that records the popularity of search terms over a period of time. An analysis on an event that had a major impact on our lives in 2018 would be useful in assessing the pattern of our interest in specific events. Such an occurrence is the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, FL that took place on Feb 14, 2018, and resulted in the death of seventeen individuals. It captured our greatest attention, fueled our frustrations with the administration, and spread our love to the entire community. Despite all of this, the trend of our general interest in the search term “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School” over a twelve month period, doesn’t reflect our engrossment in the event, the people or its consequences.
Results for the search term “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School”A value of a 100 on the vertical axis represents when the term was most popular, whereas a 50 means the term was half as popular at that point in time. There is an abrupt spike during Feb 2018, when the shooting occurred, followed by a somewhat sharp decline and some lingering searches through the months of Feb-Mar 2018. The decline in interest in the term “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School” reaffirms Figley’s claim of people attempting to adapt from a horrifying and traumatic event, and pushing emotions away from immediate thoughts. Perhaps this also represents the decline in our empathy with regards to specific matters over time, as mentioned by Dr. Cox.
Research by Brad J. Bushman and Craig A. Anderson, in their report “Comfortably Numb: Desensitizing Effects of Violent Media on Helping Others,” finds that “violent media make[s] people numb to the pain and suffering of others.” Their study demonstrated how the participants who played a violent video games or watched violent movies, were less likely to help someone in distress than those who engaged in non-violent video games or movies.
Bushman and Anderson also trace the sequence in which violence in the media affects our empathy. Once we observe something violent, there is an “extinction of fear/anxiety reactions to violence” so our hearts beat slower, and other violent events elicit less shock than preceding ones. This leads to “decreased sympathy for violence victims,” “increased belief that violence is normative” and “decreased attention to violent events.” Bushman and Anderson conclude by stating that through exposure to violence, we become “‘comfortably numb’ to the pain and suffering of others and are consequently less helpful.”
But are we the only ones responsible for desensitization to violence in the news? Wouldn’t news agencies also play a role? The Pew Research Center’s PEJ News Coverage Index examines the top ten stories covered by 5 different sectors (newspapers, online, network TV, cable TV and radio) every week. In the week of March 26-April 1, 2012, the “Trayvon Martin Shooting,” engaged 18% of the news hole, standing at rank number two, of the most covered topics, whereas in the week of May 28-Jun 3, 2012, the number only stood at 2%. The Google Trends report for the fluctuation in our interest in the search term “Trayvon Martin Shooting” over the year 2012, mirrors this plummet in news coverage.
Results for the search term “Trayvon Martin Shooting”The search term was most popular from March 25-31 2012, a similar time frame to when the news coverage for the Trayvon Martin Shooting was exceedingly high. And as the coverage decreases to 2% towards the end of May, the relative interest in this topic also lays low. Perhaps the result of our lack of empathy and rise in desensitization changes based on the level of news coverage of the particular matter. However, it’s important to note that this is only looking at one topic to examine the relationship between news coverage and our interest, so it may not be the case for other events. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting, and important possibility to consider.
So how do we stop ourselves from becoming “comfortably numb” to violence, atrocities and terror? Dr. Cox suggests that we should invest our time in “actively [listening] for those suffering” and “emotional management.” Meanwhile, news agencies “could focus on the response” to these events initiated by the community, which could embolden us to not only feel more concerned for the people affected, but maybe also take action. It can be hard to keep all of this in mind with the barrage of notifications we receive everyday, but we should try our best to make an active effort to not only read about what’s going on, but also find ways to help bit by bit.