1 of 2 A couple stands in front of photos displayed at a monument to soldiers who died in the Ukraine war, central Kiev, February 24, 2023 — Photo: SERGEI TSCHUZAVKOV / AFP A couple stands in front of photos displayed at a monument to the fallen Soldiers are exhibited at war in Ukraine, center of Kiev, February 24, 2023. — Photo: SERGEI CHUSAVKOV / AFP
It is common for us to look away from news or social media posts about war and violence. After all, we are constantly bombarded online with images of traumatic events.
This phenomenon, called compassion fatigue, leads to a gradual decrease in compassion over time. And it takes away our ability to respond and help those in need.
“I felt that after the invasion of Ukraine,” said Jessica Roberts, professor of communications at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon. “When I first heard about the atrocities, it was horrifying. But then when I heard about it [atrocidades em] In another city, my reaction was less extreme.”
The fatigue of compassion does not have to be permanent, however. As Susan Sontag wrote in her 2003 book, Facing the Pain of Others, “Compassion is an unstable emotion that must be translated into action—or it will pass.”
So how can we put compassion into action? DW found studies and spoke to experts about how compassion can both fade and rebuild.
Compassion fatigue and insensitivity to violence
Brad Bushman, a media researcher at Ohio State University in the US, has conducted experiments that illustrate how violence in media such as video games and films can desensitize people’s response to reallife suffering or violence.
In a study by Bushman and his colleagues, a group of college students played a violent video game and another group played a nonviolent game, both for 20 minutes. After the game, all 320 participants were asked to answer a questionnaire. However, during this time they heard a fight in the hallway outside the room.
“It was footage of professional actors simulating a fight. We also had a research associate kick a trash can outside the room and then groan,” Bushman told DW.
So the researchers measured how long it took participants to help the assistant who was allegedly involved in a fight and moaning outside: on average, it took people 16 seconds to play the nonviolent game; those who played the violent game, 73 seconds.
Bushman said participants who played the violent game reported that the struggle was less serious than those who played the nonviolent game.
It would be too easy to conclude that violent video games breed violence. But in Bushman’s experiments, violent games appear to temporarily alter people’s response to violence in the real world.
“Seeing violent images causes people to become desensitized and think that violence is not a big problem. The consequence in the real world is that we are less likely to help someone who has been the victim of violence,” Bushman said.
Compassion fatigue is a form of emotional protection
According to Bushman, the underlying psychological mechanism behind compassion fatigue is desensitization.
“It’s really kind of an emotional or attentional filter that protects us from grief that becomes too stressful or traumatic to handle,” Bushman said.
It is also possible to demonstrate desensitization to violent images in people’s physiological responses to stress.
“When we measure cardiovascular responses or brain waves [usando eletroencefalografia]we will see that physiological shock responses to violent images are dampened in people who have just played a violent video game,” Bushman said.
However, he argued that desensitization to violence and trauma could be an important adaptation strategy for professionals whose work is often exposed to traumatic events, such as. B. Soldiers, helpers and doctors.
The problem arises when this desensitization is found in the “normal” population.
“This adaptation is one of the mechanisms that leads to more aggression and violence in society,” Bushman said, citing research showing how the conflict in Israel and Palestine increases violence among children.
2 of 2 Images of suffering in Ukraine no longer move many people — Photo: Andriy Andriyenko/AP Photo Many people no longer move from images of suffering in Ukraine — Photo: Andriy Andriyenko/AP Photo
pity fatigue towards refugees
Yasmin Aldamen of Istanbul’s Ibn Haldun University highlighted the dangers that compassion fatigue can lead to more violence and hate speech in society. Aldamen’s research focuses on the effects that compassion fatigue and negative media portrayals have on Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan.
“We found that highlighting negative images and messages about refugees in the media opens the door for the public to lose empathy for them or even hate refugees,” Aldamen told DW.
Unfortunately, these findings are not new or surprising: violence against refugees and migrants has been around for as long as people have fled conflict elsewhere. What is new is how quickly the media and social media can foster pity fatigue and consequently hate speech and racism.
We see this again and again, for example after part of the population fled the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, with refugees from the war in Ukraine and from climate change in North Africa.
“There is evidence that after a disaster, people give less money over time. And this is already happening with earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria,” said Roberts of the Catholic University of Portugal.
Compassion fatigue is temporary and can be reversed.
Compassion fatigue can be reversed, according to Roberts and Aldamen. They say people can rebuild their capacity for compassion over time.
“We can use social media to create empathy and compassion between people. In our research, we looked at that [fotoblog e livro de relatos de rua e entrevistas] Humans of New York, which focuses on positive stories about people’s lives rather than their traumas. And that helped create a lot of empathy,” Roberts told DW.
Aldamen has a similar mission: calling on the media and people on social media to change the way they portray refugees and other vulnerable populations.
“My study recommends reporting on the Syrian refugee crisis [e outras crises] with a more humanistic perspective. The media needs to share some of the most positive stories about the refugee crisis to ensure audiences don’t suffer from compassion fatigue when exposed to tragic stories,” Aldamen told DW.
She also said it’s important that the news includes calls to action from individuals or policymakers so that readers can help those in need, rather than just watching a crisis they believe cannot be resolved.