By Jennifer R. Farmer
I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you. What you watch and listen to has a profound impact on your psychological and emotional well-being. It influences how you think, what you believe, how you feel and how you interpret the world.
That’s why, years ago, I set an intention to guard my heart and avoid violent and hateful content. I don’t care how much I have been anticipating seeing a movie, I will skip or end the movie, if there is a scene depicting any form of abuse. And after seeing and reading about the many Black people who were beaten or killed by police, I realized I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something different.
Following the distribution of disturbing images or video, receivers can experience a sort of post-traumatic stress. And when it comes to the treatment of marginalized people by those in positions of power, I felt I was unwittingly inundated with images of violence, death and abuse on social media, in the news, and in pop culture. I wasn’t there when it happened. I didn’t know the victims or their families. And yet, the images and scenes of violence haunted me.
Although I tried to scroll past the images when using social media, or turn the channel when consuming the news, it was almost impossible to block all horrific and hateful content. Our society obsesses with this sort of thing and it is on multiple communication platforms. The thing is, exposure to this content is not benign. Even trigger warnings that indicate content can be triggering, are insufficient. The mere mention of a trigger warning, can be triggering. And once one has been exposed, one cannot help but be adversely impacted.
There is data backing up my point. BBC explains, “It turns out that news coverage is far more than a benign source of facts…it can sneak into our subconscious and meddle with our lives in surprising ways. It can lead us to miscalculate certain risks, shape our views of foreign countries, and possibly influence the health of entire economies. It can increase our risk of developing post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression. Now there’s emerging evidence that the emotional fallout of news coverage can even affect our physical health – increasing our chances of having a heart attack or developing health problems years later.”
If you want to learn more about how what you consume impacts you, see this article.