Rethinking “Don’t Look Away” in the Age of Doomscrolling

Most of my work focuses on how media shapes our sense of self, particularly in relation to body image. But, the same systems that distort how we see ourselves also influence how we process injustice. Our current media systems provide constant access to information through social media platforms, 24-hour news, YouTube videos, Twitch streams, and podcasts. These systems shape not only what we see, but how we're expected to feel, react, and prove we care. They influence what we absorb, the urgency we attach to it, and what it demands from our attention and energy.

This is the first in a series of posts exploring what it means to stay informed without becoming overwhelmed. I’m starting with a phrase you’ve probably seen before: don’t look away.

From Scarcity to Saturation

Urging people not to look away made sense in an earlier media landscape. When atrocities were buried in the back pages of newspapers or hidden from view entirely, the challenge was to get people to care. Journalists and activists fought to break through silence, censorship, and indifference. A single image, broadcast or printed, could serve as a rare window into a reality people might never see.

The phrase “don’t look away” in that context was a directive. It reminded people that witnessing injustice took effort. It required vigilance, especially when comfort made it easy to ignore the suffering of others.

But today, we live in a very different information environment. We’re surrounded not just by the events themselves, like protests, court rulings, executive orders, acts of violence, and climate reports, but also by the nonstop commentary that builds around them.

Social media, podcasts, YouTube videos, and 24-hour news fill our days with reaction, interpretation, and emotional urgency. Together, they create a churn of information and feeling that rarely allows time to reflect or respond with clarity.

What Not Looking Away Looks Like Now

Today, when someone says don’t look away, we don’t just make sure we’re staying informed. We are immersed. We doomscroll. We listen to pundits analyze and react. Outcomes are laid out and repeated. Things that haven’t come to pass start to feel like reality.

The problem is no longer silence. The problem is saturation.

And it’s not just that the content and commentary are overwhelming. It’s the reaction to it. Comment sections fill with cruelty, denial, and even celebration of harm. It’s one thing to witness injustice. It’s another to see people cheering it on. That kind of exposure deepens the emotional toll, turning digital spaces into something less like a source of information and more like a site of disillusionment, grief, and burnout.

The Economics of Attention

The saturation we feel exists because it's profitable. What began with 24-hour news has grown into a full ecosystem of platforms designed to keep us engaged. YouTube, Twitch, podcasts, and algorithm-driven social media feeds each offer their own endless stream of reaction, commentary, and emotional urgency. Coverage is rarely just about the facts. It’s edited, framed, and delivered in ways meant to keep us watching, often at the cost of nuance.

What often gets missed in conversations about “being informed” is how easily these systems can become your entire world. The constant updates, repeated talking points, and the feeling of always being on the edge of something catastrophic all add up. Outrage holds our attention, so that’s what gets amplified. The goal isn’t clarity. It’s retention. The longer you stay inside these loops, the more natural they start to feel.

These platforms don’t just reflect urgency. They create it.

When Witnessing Becomes Compulsion

In this environment, the phrase don’t look away risks being misinterpreted. Rather than a call for deliberate engagement, it can start to feel like a mandate to stay locked in. People feel pressure to keep watching, to monitor every development, and to stay immersed in an endless stream of outrage, crisis, and commentary. Stepping back can feel like abandoning the cause or admitting you don’t care.

The moral force of the phrase remains, but its effects have shifted. With so many places to look and so much content demanding a reaction, what was once a prompt toward action can now lead to paralysis, burnout, or a sense of helplessness.

The Psychological Costs of Constant Exposure

The psychological toll is real. Constant exposure to traumatic content can lead to compassion fatigue, emotional numbing, or vicarious trauma. It can normalize violence or create a sense that the world is simply unfixable.

When everything is urgent, it becomes difficult to distinguish between what needs your attention and what simply hijacks your attention. This can lead to a state of chronic distress, where the line between being informed and being overwhelmed is unclear. For my Gen Z readers, think of it as a type of brainrot.

A New Ethic of Witnessing

To avoid burnout, we need a new ethic of witnessing. One that values attention but also respects the limits of the human psyche. It must recognize that staying informed is not the same as staying exposed. We need rest and balance to sustain the energy required for creating change.

Instead of don’t look away, maybe the better message is stay on their neck. Something that still calls for accountability, but shifts the focus toward action rather than passive observation.

Action can take many forms. It might mean protesting, calling elected officials, donating, organizing, having a conversation, or checking in on someone. It also means stepping back. Rest and disengagement are not a break from the work. They are part of it. No one sustains long-term effort without recovery.

Holding Attention With Intention

Let me be clear. It sucks that we have to do this much work. Parsing what’s real, what’s speculation, and what’s spin. Figuring out how much analysis we can take before it turns into anxiety. Deciding how much reading “the other side” actually helps us understand their position before it slips into doomscrolling. Every part of it takes effort. And all of it gets in the way of figuring out what we can actually do.

I know the only real advice I gave today was this: give yourself permission to take breaks. But I’m working on more. I’m developing a new program based on the research I did for Reclaim Your Feed. This one focuses on how social media shapes our relationship to politics. How to shift your feed. How to reduce your exposure. How to take action offline. If you want to be notified when it launches, you can sign up here.