Grace Haupt ’20
In today’s world, endless amounts of information are available at the tip of our fingertips. Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and countless other social media apps are all designed to possess our attention and keep us locked into scrolling down the never-ending feed of our social accounts. But to do this, social media companies exploit the morbid tendencies of human beings and show us violence. This can include mass shootings, harassment, violent protests, and others events. At first, we were rightfully disturbed. But over time, we have become desensitized to violence. Noble Brigham ‘20 explains, “I remember the day Sandy Hook happened [in December of 2012], and how shaken I was that someone could do something like that. Since then, I am depressed by similar reports, but not as much.”
Asked about the role social media has played in the current trend of apathy, Brigham asserts that social media does have a lot to do with desensitization. “Social media allows news to travel quickly, so the news cycle has sped up and we are inundated with violence; so much so that it no longer seems as serious.”
Ruth Engelman ‘21 condemns desensitization to violence, calling it “dangerous for our society, as it fosters a kind of apathy on a level never before seen.” According to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health study has shown that desensitization can lead to actualized violence because people don’t care as much about the consequences.
Episcopal’s latest enactment of “No Phone Wednesdays” was created to help alleviate our addiction to social media and cell phone usage. Taking time off of devices allows us the time for introspection as well as foster relationships with our peers – an approach to bring back our dissipating levels of empathy within our communities.
Another way we might look into to help us wave off the cloud of desensitization is open forum dialogue. After a shooting or other tragedy, if we all came together as an Upper School to discuss what happened rather than discovering and dismissing the event on our own, we might again understand the true depths of these events.