Before You Share, Care!

Photo credit: Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Community Group

I was 12 years at the time (living with one of my elderly Sisters), and I had just returned from school. My nephew, Kojo, was sitting under the shade of an ornamental plant (which is still alive today) reading the day’s newspaper. My curiosity moved me like Southwest Monsoon winds to check out what he was reading. He showed me the front page of the newspaper and there it was…a man holding severed head of a young boy –probably 6 years old. My heart skipped a beat, and my whole body shivered. In fact, I was traumatized by what I saw! …that was my first time of seeing a severed head, and even if it was the second time, it still wouldn’t have been pleasant to my eyes. I could not sleep well in the night…it was as if I was being haunted. 

Fast-forwarding to a version older of me, I have recovered from that trauma and adapted to graphic images in the world community. I may have adjusted over time, however, there are many people who may be traumatized by graphic images and will take an extended period to bounce back or will never recover. 

Sadly, most of us share these images without thinking about the victims in the images or their effects on viewers. It appears to me that people traumatized by these images are not able to voice their displeasure; the general population do not care so much hence, attention to graphic images and their vicarious trauma whisper in our daily discourse.  I would have kept quiet, however, the Tsunami of graphical images that continue to flood social media platforms (especially WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) nowadays have reached alarming proportions and deserve to be given attention.

We are made to believe that the World is peaceful comparing events of 21st century (Isis attacks, 9/11, Boko Haram insurgency, etc.) to that of 20th Century (WWI, WWII, Civil rights movements, etc.). Hold on to your thoughts on that! …I am not trying to veer into that debate. However, you would agree with me that today, users of social media are more exposed (some of them unavoidably) to stumble onto graphic content than years before. Thanks to technology, thus far we have come. You wake up in the morning, trying to meditate, and you are presented with a diet of traumatic images via social media, television, among others. Let me reiterate that sometimes, users of these media platforms (especially social media) share graphic videos and pictures without cautioning recipients, and also thinking about the traumatic effect these would have on people. I think it is time we shifted attention to think about graphic images and their effects on people’s health. 

In the process of putting this write-up together, I reviewed a document titled; “Repeated Exposure to Media Images of Traumatic Events May Be Harmful to Mental and Physical Health” . In it, an Internet-based survey was conducted on 1,322 participants to assess the effect of graphic media exposure on   their mental and physical health before the 9/11 attacks, and also the start of the Iraqi War.  It collected data on their media exposure and acute stress responses immediately after the 9/11 attack as well as the start of the Iraqi War.  It also conducted annual follow-up assessments in the three years after 9/11.   

The following are some of the findings from the study:  

• Almost 12% of the participants reported high levels of acute stress related to 9/11 and about 7% reported high levels of acute stress related to the Iraq War
• The effects of trauma-related media exposure lasted over time – frequent early exposure to 9/11-related television predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms and physical health problems two to three years later.
• The results also suggested that exposure to graphic media images may be an important mechanism through which the impact of collective trauma is dispersed widely.

There is a plethora of evidences which seem to suggest that graphic images traumatize people. I believe none of you, my readers, would like to traumatize people (on social media) via sharing of graphic images. 

In view of the foregoing, I wish to make these submissions to protect social media users from exposure to graphic images. Before you send any graphic images via social media or any related platform;

• Kindly ask yourself whether it is necessary to send the images to people.  
• Secondly, please do care for the affected individual(s) in the image. It is important to respect people’s privacy (even the dead). Also do care about your recipients’ health. I believe you would not like to be the causal agent of the poor health of others.  
• Herald your images with alert message. For example, you could write “the picture(s) or video(s) below is [are] graphical in content, viewer discretion is advised”. This way you help people to make a conscious decision whether or not to watch it.

And to the reader at the receiving end, I would advise that;

• You do well to check your social media App and update the settings. You could prevent the App (esp. WhatsApp) from downloading images or videos automatically.  You would save yourself from exposure to traumatic images. 
• You may communicate (politely) your displeasure to the sender to caution him or her. 
• In case the sender persistently floods your space with graphic images, you may block the person. 

Your health is very important so be responsible and maintain it!
I must state that this write-up is in no way personal. I am a concerned citizen helping to maintain sanity in the cyberspace and prevent trauma among social media users.

Thank you.