How Has Desensitization to Violence Due to Overexposure to Violent Content on the Online Media Impacted Individuals’ and Society’s Behavior and Levels of Empathy?

Every day, millions of people scroll through feeds filled with graphic images of injured animals, videos of suffering children, interviews with war survivors, and articles written about violent crimes committed across the world, all of which are viewed on a simple slab of metal that is small enough to fit inside a pocket. For just a brief moment, these posts capture the reader’s attention. They make us feel sadness, sympathy, or even anger. However, these emotions disappear just as quickly as they materialize. Within seconds, another video, photograph, or headline replaces the last tragedy, pushing it out of sight, and out of mind. As violent content becomes more and more common on the online media, society has grown desensitized to the suffering of others. People no longer see the victims as someone who could have been their own children, friends, or family members, and there is a clear line drawn between the unaffected masses and the impacted individuals. Although the online media can help raise awareness about important issues, its accessibility and constant presence in our lives has resulted in overexposure to violence, leading to a decrease in empathy, impaired mental health, and dehumanization of victims, ultimately contributing to harmful behaviors and consequences.

A major effect of desensitization is the lack of response to violence. “Psychologists describe how (people)...usually respond strongly to initial positive or negative stimulus, but when the stimulus is repeated often,” their reactions weaken until they may no longer be strongly affected by it (“Desensitized”). This was demonstrated in the Philippines, where during the 1985 Escalante Massacre, the military opened fire on a crowd of protestors, killing twenty people and kickstarting widespread protests. However, when human rights activist Bernardino Patigas, one of the massacre’s survivors, was brutally assassinated in the same city in 2019, there was far less public outrage despite the crime’s scale of cruelty (“Desensitized”). As people become more used to seeing violence, they begin to view it as normal and insignificant. The same pattern can be found online. After the assassination of Charlie Kirk in 2025, videos of his death quickly spread across social media platforms, appearing as memes, entertainment, and everyday content that was belittled by many people. Rather than remembering Charlie Kirk’s death as a tragedy, the footage was replayed countless times and shared as casual, lighthearted content. Each and every replay prevented people from having empathy towards the event until it became just another soulless trend or clip (Choudhury). People consume violence in the same way as entertainment, and should it continue to happen, there will be no more meaningful public responses or basic human decency.

Additionally, excluding decreased reactions, exposure to violent media can negatively affect individuals’ emotional well-being, especially children and adolescents who are still developing. Experts from both the United States and Canada determined that excessive exposure to television violence contributes to “desensitization, aggression, impaired learning abilities, and increased bullying and weapons use” (“Excessive TV”). Madison Brooks also explains that young people face constant exposure to violent content through social media, where many users glorify violence and contribute to the spread of ideas of sexism, rape culture, hateful speech, and gun violence (Brooks). Not only can violent content influence behavior, but it can also create anxiety and fear. With at least 656 reported mass shootings in the United States during 2023, many people constantly live in fear of their own safety, as they are reminded of the presence and reality of violence every time they open up social media. Repeated exposure to violence can even result in secondary trauma, where individuals experience psychological stress from witnessing others’ suffering through images and videos. This demonstrates how the consequences of violent media can reach far beyond just people’s screens (Brooks). When people consume aggressive content, they take themselves through the same traumatic and intense experiences, thus potentially causing increased aggression and fear.

Media desensitization has bigger, general consequences for society too; it is not limited to only individuals. Realistic depictions of violence in films, television, and social media have normalized violence and reduced empathy altogether, especially among younger generations. “Public outcry tends to spike momentarily, only to fade into resignation as the news cycle moves on…As real-life horror becomes more frequent(,)…the emotional impact diminishes, reinforcing the dangerous notion that violence is simply an inescapable part of life” (Ortiz). The same could be said for the media’s depictions of sexual assault, and how it is fetishized, allowing for the audience to not take the topic seriously and create questionable opinions or norms within society. Desensitization is also supported by dehumanization. In the Philippines, violence against drug users, the poor, and political opponents becomes easier to ignore because these groups are seen as not worth caring for (“Desensitized”). Similarly, ICE-related incidents are often downplayed because most of the victims are undocumented immigrants, and therefore seen as less deserving of sympathy. The spread of violent content online supports this problem by reducing human suffering to content that can be liked, shared, and then forgotten, all within minutes.

In conclusion, overexposure to violent content through online media has significantly contributed to desensitization, reduced empathy, and changed individual and societal behavior. Constant exposure weakens people’s reactions, creating stress and fear and normalizing violence in everyday life. As people become more accustomed to devastating headlines and graphic images, they are less likely to respond with the compassion and urgency that should be of normal human capacity. Desensitization decreases public action against injustice and makes it easier to ignore the suffering of others, especially when dehumanization creates barriers between those who are affected and those who are not. As violent content continues to spread quickly through digital platforms, it is important for social media companies to promote responsible consumption of violent information, as well as for citizens to defy the rise of violence in mass media. After all, if any other product posed a major threat to people’s physical well-being on even weaker evidence, people would be demanding for it to be removed from stores’ shelves. Thus, society should be able to treat threats to mental health with the same seriousness as threats to physical health (“Excessive TV”). It should be known that if screen violence becomes more and more unavoidable in everyday life, society faces the threat of an epidemic of indifference towards violence.

Works Cited

Brooks, Madison. "Seeing violent news can increase anxiety, fear and desensitization." Kairo's Magazine, 26 Apr. 2024, kairosmagazine.rutgers.edu/seeing-violent-news-can-lead-to-greater-anxiety-fear-and-desensitization/. Accessed 21 May 2026.

Choudhury, Jennifer. "When Violence Becomes Viral: Why the Charlie Kirk Assassination Footage Should Alarm Us All." KinderWeb, 11 Sept. 2025, www.kinderweb.org/reads/when-violence-becomes-viral-why-the-charlie-kirk-assassination-footage-should-alarm-us-all. Accessed 1 June 2026.

"Desensitized." Philippines Daily Inquirer [Makati City, Philippines], 1 May 2019. Gale In Context: Global Issues, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A584176072/GIC?u=berw2747&sid=bookmark-GIC&xid=05d79741. Accessed 21 May 2026.

"Excessive TV violence harms children." Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada], 24 Mar. 1993, p. A19. Gale In Context: Global Issues, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A163951405/GIC?u=berw2747&sid=bookmark-GIC&xid=795a6030. Accessed 21 May 2026.

Ortiz, Ana. "Screens of Desensitization: How Media Numbs Our Society." The Minaret, 27 Apr. 2025, theminaretonline.org/2025/04/27/screens-of-desensitization-how-media-numbs-our-society/. Accessed 21 May 2026.

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