Skip to main content

Violent news on social media could trigger post-traumatic symptoms, study says

If you’ve ever felt that social media can sometimes bring you down, a new study says that there may be something to that. According to research led by Dr. Pam Ramsden from the University of Bradford’s Faculty of Social Sciences, in England, people can develop post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms by viewing images associated with disturbing news events on social media.

Out of 189 participants, 22 percent were found to exhibit symptoms commonly associated with PTSD, a term commonly associated with military personnel returning from the battlefront. PTSD is a mental health condition that can arise after an individual’s exposed to a shocking event like an assault, major stress, or terrorist attack. Common symptoms include nightmares, anxiety attacks, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and hypervigilance.

Recommended Videos

Dr. Ramsden’s study looked at how images related to disturbing, well-known news stories – like the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and the disappearance of three-year-old toddler Madeleine McCann – affected study participants. Interestingly, the people most traumatized by these images were the people drawn to them, which led to them continually watching the images in a vicious cycle of “re-traumatization.”

The study focused on so-called “vicarious” trauma, which is unique because it affects people by exposing them to other people’s pain and suffering in an indirect way. Jurors as well as healthcare professionals can develop “vicarious” trauma. This is in contrast to professionals like police officers who, in spite of their direct exposure to trauma, can eventually become desensitized to it.

Dr. Ramsden, who also revealed her findings at the British Psychological Society’s yearly gathering in Liverpool, said that social media has made it possible for the public to absorb violent news and images in unedited, graphic form. Today, about 25 percent of the entire world has access to social media, making the transmission of disturbing images easy.

She’s particularly interested in finding out why some people “re-traumatize” themselves by constantly revisiting the same, upsetting images. She theorizes that attribution is the key to understanding this surprising study finding. Attribution occurs when people taking in social media images relate these images to things that have happened to themselves.

The implications of the findings could be grave. Dr. Ramsden warns that deleterious effects of social media may be underreported or mislabeled as merely depression. She believes that more people need to be alerted to these potential dangers of absorbing social media.

Marc Schenker
Marc Schenker is a copywriter who's an expert in business and marketing topics like e-commerce, B2Bs, digital marketing and…
Bluesky finally adds a feature many had been waiting for
A blue sky with clouds.

Bluesky has been making a lot of progress in recent months by simplifying the process to sign up while at the same time rolling out a steady stream of new features.

As part of those continuing efforts, the social media app has just announced that users can now send direct messages (DMs).

Read more
Reddit just achieved something for the first time in its 20-year history
The Reddit logo.

Reddit’s on a roll. The social media platform has just turned a profit for the first time in its 20-year history, and now boasts a record 97.2 million daily active users, marking a year-over-year increase of 47%. A few times during the quarter, the figure topped 100 million, which Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said in a letter to shareholders had been a “long-standing milestone” for the site.

The company, which went public in March, announced the news in its third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.

Read more
Worried about the TikTok ban? This is how it might look on your phone
TikTok splash screen on an Android phone.

The US Supreme Court has decided to uphold a law that would see TikTok banned in the country on January 19. Now, the platform has issued an official statement, confirming that it will indeed shut down unless it gets some emergency relief from the outgoing president.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” said the company soon after the court’s verdict.
So, what does going dark mean?
So, far, there is no official statement on what exactly TikTok means by “going dark.” There is a lot of speculation out there on how exactly the app or website will look once TikTok shutters in the US.

Read more