From images to outrage: When violence becomes a daily diet

I cannot remember the last time my social media feed was free of blood. Since the day I first logged onto Facebook as a teenager in Baghdad in 2009-2010, violence has followed me like a shadow. Back then, warnings about violent imagery felt redundant in a life steeped in devastation. Over time, shock gave way to habit. From Syria’s uprisings to ISIS’ terror in Iraq, my feed has been filled with bombings, executions, and rubble: Images that once horrified me have gradually become routine.

This is what millions of Iraqis, Palestinians, and Syrians have lived through – a shared experience now spreading globally, consumed as casually as memes or gossip. The world after October 7, 2023, when the Gaza-Israel war escalated, drove this reality home. For the first time, people in Berlin, London, Tokyo, New York, and São Paulo saw their feeds resemble mine: filled with dead children, shattered neighbourhoods, and grieving parents.

War has become a daily diet. And I wonder what this diet is doing to us.

The global turn: Gaza and beyond

What was once regional is now universal. Unlike Iraq’s wars and conflicts, which outsiders consumed selectively through news reports, Gaza was livestreamed globally, flooding social media with graphic content – bodies pulled from rubble, children screaming in hospital corridors, drone footage of bombings – at an unprecedented scale. People who had never experienced war scrolled through daily, and reacted: Protests erupted globally, millions marching in disgust at images seen online.

Citizen journalists on the ground are central to this. Mahmoud (pseudonym), a Gaza-based citizen journalist, explains: “Every bombed building, every displaced family, every resilient smile tells a story that deserves to be seen as it happens. I share raw footage because the world needs to see what we see, not a filtered version. Silence feels more dangerous than risk.” His work reflects the urgency of making the human cost of conflict visible, bridging the gap between lived realities and distant observers.

This marks a profound shift: social media’s violent imagery is not only traumatising, it is mobilising. The content that numbs those close to the pain can awaken outrage in distant audiences. Even Israeli officials admitted the staggering human toll, echoing long reported Palestinian figures. That grim admission underscores how vast the suffering has become, even as debates rage over numbers and narratives.

The paradox of violent imagery

Here lies the paradox. As Aristotle said, “the soul never thinks without a picture.” Images are central to how we process the world, conveying realities of conflict and human suffering. Without documentation, atrocities risk being erased. If no one filmed the Yazidis fleeing Mount Sinjar in 2014, would the world have cared enough to intervene? If George Floyd’s murder had not been recorded, would protests have spread across continents? Violence must be seen to be believed.

An editor at a major MENA (Middle East and North Africa) newsroom, who requested anonymity, explained: “We face this dilemma daily, publish a child’s lifeless photo and risk traumatising readers, or hide it and risk erasing reality. Blur the blood or show it raw? Such choices shape how wars are remembered and fought.”

Syrian journalist Luma Rajih, in her 2017 Arabic article The Controversy of Violent Media Imagery: Realities That Shape Its Manifestations, highlighted debates over publishing horrific images. Critics fear desensitisation, while others see them as vital for truth. She warned that constant exposure dulls impact, reducing each atrocity to another passing wave in an endless stream.

Repeated exposure to such imagery can also adversely impact audiences. Sulaymaniyah-based Kurdish psychiatrist Avahae Al-Jaff told me it can fuel anxiety, depression, helplessness, doomscrolling, substance use, and aggression. Children risk numbness and reduced empathy, while secondary trauma may affect those witnessing suffering indirectly. A 2024 study of 180 Jordanian adolescents found 70% experienced high stress after viewing Gaza war footage, and in another study involving 85 West Bank media students, over 80% reported stress or sleep issues.

Interestingly, although two thirds of participants in the latter study saw images as dignity violations, half still went on to share them. This is what worries me most; not the short-term shock, but the long-term shaping of a generation’s psyche.

For Iraqis of my age, war has been an unavoidable inheritance. Now, through social media, this inheritance is spreading globally. A teenager in Seoul, Helsinki, or Buenos Aires may not fear a roadside bomb, but their digital coming-of-age includes daily encounters with corpses and airstrikes. Digital memories of violence may cultivate empathy and activism, or erode mental health and foster cynicism. Perhaps both outcomes coexist: a world more empathetic yet more traumatised.

Sudan and Ukraine add to this grim global archive, where each statistic hides torrents of violent imagery shaping collective memory.

The ethics of witnessing

Societies once shielded children from violent imagery, knowing minds need protection. Today, those walls have collapsed. Platforms reward virality, and violence spreads fastest of all. Even if we look away, algorithms drag us back.

Ash Gallagher, veteran war correspondent, analyst, and author, describes the balance between bearing witness and preserving one’s well-being. To her, witnessing is a duty, but so is protecting the spirit: Moments of joy and rest allow clearer, more responsible testimony. She stresses avoiding constant “trauma dumping” and being mindful of how distant audiences absorb violent imagery. Ethical witnessing means testifying without being consumed by despair.

So the question is not whether to document violence, but how. Can we find healthier ways to engage with imagery, contextualise it, and support those affected, ensuring documentation serves justice and empathy rather than voyeurism?

This requires bridging psychology, journalism, activism, and technology, preparing young people to process what they inevitably encounter. Bearing witness is not just about recording suffering, but helping audiences engage without paralysis.

As Gallagher told me: “Activism is about moving the needle. Bearing witness is not only about showing the trauma, but about finding ways to move people toward healing, justice, and progress. We have a responsibility to help our audiences engage with suffering without letting it paralyse them.”

Ethical witnessing, then, is care for both subject and viewer, ensuring images lead not to numbness, but to action.

Reflection

I confess: I am sick of waking to massacres framed as hashtags, yet I cannot look away. For Iraqis, Palestinians, Sudanese, Syrians, Ukrainians, and others, violence is not optional; it intrudes whether we welcome it or not. Documentation, no matter how painful, is survival. To watch is to wound ourselves; to look away is to abandon others. There is no easy answer, only a fragile balance.

The best I can do, for myself, my generation, and for the strangers suffering on my screen, is to refuse to let normalisation erase empathy. I am sick of this, but I will not look away. These images are not just pixels, they are people.

The world bleeds across our timelines. The question is not whether we see it, but what we do with the sight.