Compassion Fatigue.
Why I’m So Tired of #ThoughtsandPrayers
As a millennial who is a self-dubbed feminist, environmental activist, goal kicking law student and ‘trying to be the best I can in this world’ kind of person, I never know how to feel about social media. Some days I wake up and read articles that deem social media as ‘a place for mind-numbing narcissists which promotes laziness and lack of concentration,’ and I get mad. Social media is how we communicate, a space for individuals to share exciting things about their life; images of themselves they are proud of and other such interactions. Not only that, I still like to have my head in a book, make real conversation with my family and go out with my friends. It ain’t all bad.
But then there are days I’m on the other side of the fence; where I feel social media is this fake enterprise of perfectly-timed photos and transparent caring. I’m sick of everyone on social media sharing or making posts about the media’s latest charity case, whether that be mass shootings, refugee mistreatment and most recently, the Amazon Rainforest fires. I know for a fact that after the two clicks it takes to share these posts, most people go back to their privileged and environmentally damaging lifestyles.
Often I find these posts are accompanied by useless captions; they hardly ever call for, or take any genuine action to help resolve the issue they seek to expose. The reason I take issue with this is a little phenomenon called Compassion Fatigue. I’m overwhelmed by the mere task of looking on the internet and seeing only what bad is in the world, and the tiresome understanding that although I see it occurring, I can’t fix all these issues by myself.
The Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project defines this phenomenon to be ‘an extreme state of tension and preoccupation with the suffering of those being helped, to the degree that it can create a secondary traumatic stress for the helper.’ It becomes a problem when individuals like myself start to witness an onslaught of calls for charity donations, volunteer help and other need for assistance on the internet and in everyday life. As Dr Charles Figley from the Tulane Traumatology Institute in New Orleans affirms, witnessing all this need makes people fatigued, and when one is so overwhelmed by what and where they can start to help, they often don’t help at all.
Recently there was a Ted Talk conducted at the official Ted residency in New York, which discussed the impact of the environmental crisis on our mental health. If you have a few minutes to spare today (after reading my article of course), watch this video. I believe it is really important.
This Ted Talk revealed some data I could easily identify with. We are experiencing genuine psychological impacts from seeing Climate Change reports. The inundation of our Facebook feeds with shares and posts of often no-context information about this crisis, is creating feelings of ‘fatalism, hopelessness and existential distress.’
Of course the positive effects that social media can have on raising awareness, and sharing often hard to reach information are powerful. I fully acknowledge that if social media did not exist, I would not have become aware of the Amazon Rainforest fires at all, because traditional news outlets weren’t giving it any airtime. It is really the combination of viewing misinformation, only negative information and information that does not provide a solution which can be harmful.
Academic researchers of media effects tell us what to do when these feelings arise. Exit social media apps, turn off your phone and go on a Media Diet. One helpful tip I read was to turn off video ‘auto play’ on Facebook and other video sharing sites. This will stop potentially triggering or harmful videos playing as you scroll on your phone. I do not write this to dump on the internet, and social media of course. If you remember my earlier statement, I love these websites and these outlets for all their trivial fun, and for the educational information they do share at times.
The gun crisis in America is another example of social media’s spread of hopelessness and Compassion Fatigue. I don’t even live in America, but I’m so hyper aware of their issues with gun violence. You’re probably very familiar with the common celebrity and politician tactic to make a post, often with no acknowledgement of why a mass shooting has happened, and no acknowledgement of the fact that guns are the big issue behind this crisis. Instead these pollies just write something fairly meaningless like:
To date, the #ThoughtsandPrayers hashtag on Instagram has been used over 85,000 times. And despite the constant posts about gun violence, these hashtags, and the fact that fewer people in America own guns now than in previous years, gun violence is still a rising problem.
So the next time you are going to share a post on Instagram about the Amazon Rainforest Fires, or #ThoughtsandPrayers about gun violence, consider the following:
- Why am I sharing this information?
- Is the information I am sharing from an academic and reliable source?
- Will this information actually help in some way. How can I help, or encourage others to help otherwise?
An article published by AFP Fact check revealed that half of the images of the Amazon Rainforest Fires circulating social media were either taken decades earlier, or were not even of the Amazon itself… So, taking the time to understand the small yet lasting impact you have on social media is one of the greatest ways to ensure you’re using it positively.
I realise now I may have written this article to plug my environmentally conscious agenda. Despite that, I do believe awareness about Compassion Fatigue is important. Rather than criticising social media for it’s negative impacts on mental health, Compassion Fatigue tells us that too much of anything — good things, bad things, and neutral things — is never a good thing. But if you feel a little overwhelmed at times by the concept of global warming, or tweets about human rights disasters on your phone, remember that it is ok to turn away for a while. Put the phone down, read a book or go get some fresh air while you still can (only joking). I don’t believe social media is the giant monster that society tells us it is. Anyway, I still love you social media, in sickness and in health right?
