UAE: When Social Media Serves Suffering And Dopamine Hits, What Do You Do?

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

“I wake up, open my laptop, join meetings, stress about deadlines. Unfortunately, I play my part in this performance of 'normal life.' But in between, I scroll. In seconds, my screen shows my people - a child pulled from under the rubble; a man so thin you can count every rib."

"Scroll again - Love Island drama. Skincare haul unboxing. Best brunch spots... This is what the world has become; genocide, starvation, and mass death reduced to fleeting moments between content, swallowed up by algorithms that try to feed us distractions right after showing us the unbearable.”

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These are the reflections of Hazar Al-Kilani, a 27-year-old PR manager in the GCC, who describes the jarring rhythm of modern life: moments of unimaginable suffering interspersed with endless distractions and dopamine hits.

“As the genocide continues, the window into our reality narrows even further,” Hazar adds.“We have turned the unthinkable into background noise. We have taught ourselves how to keep moving, keep working, while a genocide is committed before our very eyes. I can't stop asking... how did we make this our reality? And how do [we] live normally inside it?”

So, what does this constant oscillation between tragedy and the trivial do to our mental health?“This deliberate juxtaposition is the root of deep emotional incoherence,” explains Dr Tara Wyne, clinical psychologist and clinical director of The Lighthouse Arabia Centre for Wellbeing.

“Witnessing horror, terror and tragedy activates emotional pain and moral outrage. And with short-form content and scrolling, your brain is unable to process this before being swung into the banal, further disorientating your nervous system.”

The result? This overload is fragmenting people's sense of self, leaving the brain without the pathways to cope effectively. There are increased incidents of secondary traumatisation resulting in intrusive thoughts, sleep disturbance, and heightened anxiety. People become desensitised to trauma and exhibit emotionally-blunted reactions, compassion fatigue, and emotional withdrawal leading to a persistent low moods.

When algorithms continuously and deliberately serve dopamine-inducing content mixed in with a horrific reality, many are left with a sense of dystopian“unreality”.

“At the beginning of the genocide, I would see things online and find myself crying daily and getting really emotional,” Al-Kilani said.“But now, I don't anymore. I feel like I got used to the images of death as it's mixed with the mundane - like everyone else. And it takes something truly shocking to shake me back into the realisation that this isn't normal. I feel like I'm living in a simulation - how is this real life?”

People are defaulting into a false lightness and numbness, adds Dr Wyne.“We flick through the serious and the ridiculous with the same attention and engagement. There's a profound sense of alienation, of feeling misunderstood, along with an inability to convey how our perspectives have shifted while the parts of the world continue as if nothing has changed.”

How can people safely stay informed without compromising their emotional wellbeing?“Awareness and intentionality are critical,” said Dr Wyne.“Our values influence our behaviour, so if being a humane, activated global citizen is a necessary part of your identity, you need to cultivate awareness of your own tolerance and capacity for witnessing others' pain without collapsing due to it.”

In this case, healthy compartmentalisation is important when global suffering is unrelenting. That means choosing when and how to connect with news. Identifying when you have the most capacity and tolerance and selecting times when you're not already overwhelmed and stressed by daily life. Additionally, it calls for being mindful of your news sources to avoid accessing information while passively scrolling through trending social media clips and reels.

Despite this intentionality, managing personal mental health amid an ongoing genocide doesn't come without a sense of guilt and shame.“As painful as it is to see, [Palestinians] are literally risking their lives to show us what's happening,” says Al-Kilani.“The least I can do is not dismiss it as 'too much for my mental health' and scroll away. I feel I owe it to them to watch, to engage in whatever way I can. Still, it leaves me feeling like my brain is split in two.”

That sense of inner conflict is familiar to many: the guilt of witnessing humanity's worst failures while still being safe enough to experience joy. The swing between empathy and helplessness creates distress and a sense of powerlessness.

Dr Wyne stressed that this privilege of safety must be acknowledged and used to contribute meaningfully to the alleviation of others' suffering:“However small these actions are - whether it's raising awareness, having difficult conversations, writing to changemakers, or simply bearing witness - doing something, anything, helps restore a sense of agency and humanity.”

Which brings the cycle back to Al-Kilani's opening question: how do we live normally amid a genocide that has been folded into the social media scroll? For her, the only answer is refusal to disengage.“Hold on to your empathy,” she adds.“Keep watching, keep speaking up. Don't surrender to the system that would rather have us indifferent than human.”

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