When To Look Away

How constant exposure to violence can impact our mental health

I was at the airport at 5 a.m., protein shake in hand, when the screens lit up with footage from yet another mass shooting. The images were graphic. I looked away, then looked back. My heart sped up. I walked further down the concourse only to continue to see screen after screen projecting these horrific images. That moment is ordinary now, which is exactly the problem.

We know how we respond to stress keeps us alive. Or at least how we should respond to stress. I think about it like a spring, ready to take action when a threat appears. But, as we have discussed here, the trouble really begins when that spring never uncoils. Chronic activation reshapes our brain circuits, the ones that handle memory, emotion, and control, and it wears down our immunity and impacts our heart. It’s not pop psychology, it is the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex under strain.

What keeps the system stuck on high, apart from life itself, is the feed we give it. Our brains have a bias toward bad news, a survival trick that once helped us avoid those pesky predators who wanted to eat us and now glues us to headlines. Our limbic system fires, the amygdala flags the threat, and the reward pathway drops a little dopamine when we find “new” information, so we keep scrolling. It’s not always the bad things either. It could be the cute puppies, new guitars, or any other piece of information that we are drawn to see more of. What’s cruel is that we feel worse and we still cannot bring ourselves to stop. Doomscroll much?

This pattern has consequences. After the Boston Marathon bombing, people who consumed six or more hours per day of bombing-related media reported higher acute stress than some who were there. More exposure, more symptoms, and the effect showed up months later too. Graphic images add extra fuel, which is not a good thing.

These behaviors, doomscrolling and the like, also track with anxiety, depression, and sleep disruption, especially for adolescents who carry phones into bed. We’ve seen study linking bedtime screen use with more sleep problems and more internalizing symptoms. It does not prove cause, but it is a clear signal that timing and dose matter.

A recent analysis of 42 mass shootings shows local foot traffic (where we walk) drops near sites while activity shifts elsewhere, a quiet economic shock layered on top of the human one. Repeated exposure to violent media also predicts vicarious distress and poorer functioning over time. We pay for this twice, first with our nerves, then with our neighborhoods.

If you want the short version, here it is: Doomscrolling, the habit of endlessly consuming alarming news, exploits an old survival bias that locks our attention on threats. The brain keeps scanning, the reward system tosses dopamine for each update, and stress hormones do the rest. Over time, the cycle links to higher anxiety, depressive symptoms, worse sleep, and even acute stress that can exceed what some directly exposed people report after disasters. Graphic images make it worse, and at scale the fallout shows up in trust, pessimism, and where people spend time and money. The fix is not ignorance, it is limits, timing, and choosing sources that inform without hijacking the nervous system. Boundaries, people!

Time-box it. Pick two short windows to check news, set a timer, and stop when it rings, no exceptions. Like any new behavior change, if you practice it everyday, it will get easier.

Kill the hooks. Turn off push alerts, move feeds off your home screen, switch the phone to grayscale, and ditch sources that trade in shock. This is hard to do, but there’s a reason we keep coming back for more.

Protect sleep and attention. No news in bed or for an hour before sleep and after waking, park the phone outside the bedroom, and fill the gap with a simple ritual like a walk, a call, or a stretch - anything other than staring at your screen.

If you need more incentive, these repeated media exposures also change how we see the world. If your feed makes life feel meaningless and people untrustworthy, it is not just you, it is the behavior and the design. Close the app, take a walk, and let your stress system stand down for once - reset. Your brain will thank you, even if your phone sulks.