People looking for updates across the world are seeing war on social media in the form of disturbing photographs and videos of buildings and bodies damaged by shelling in towns like Kyiv and Kharkiv, people and pets huddled in shelters, and Ukrainian citizens crying as they contact their loved ones to say farewell.
Kristina Shalashenko is a therapist in Odesa, Ukraine. She is living a nightmare every day, unsure whether or not Russia’s invasion will force her to escape her home. “It’s very scary. Everybody’s terrified and in shock,” she says through a translator. “The world [we’re] used to, it’s not there anymore.”
Kero Lubkova was born in Odesa and now lives in Colorado. Lubkocva spends days checking news sites and social media for changes thousands of miles away. Lubkova does it because they “cannot focus on anything else,” not because the updates might affect their next decision.
It’s a lot to take in. Lubkova says, “I definitely don’t think that anybody should ever be used to seeing things like this. But that’s kind of what it came down to. If I want to know what’s happening in my country, I, unfortunately, have to see this with my own two eyes.”
It isn’t the “first social media war”
People in Ukraine and throughout the world are watching the war on social media. It might be in the form of unfiltered, personal TikTok videos, Instagram stories, tweets, as well as traditional news sources. It isn’t the “first social media war,” as some have claimed; social media is useful to cover prior armed conflicts, such as the Syrian War, which began in 2011.
However, the way battles are covered on social media has changed dramatically over time. TikTok didn’t exist in 2011, and Instagram had just been around for a year. As of March 7, TikTok videos with the hashtag #ukrainewar have over 600 million views. About 180,000 Instagram posts had utilized it.
This constant barrage of information has a significant effect. It encourages people to pay attention and provides a window into the lives of Ukrainians. However, keeping up with current events can be costly. According to research, news coverage of horrific events can have an impact on viewers’ mental health. Also, footage and photographs from Ukraine circulating on social media and disinformation abounding has public health consequences.
Challenges
“People want to educate, people want to inform, people want to bear witness,” says Jason Steinhauer. He is the author of History, Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past. “The challenge is, it’s embedded within this [social media] ecosystem and architecture which, at its heart, is problematic.”
Roxane Cohen Silver is a professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine. Cohen Silver studies media coverage and trauma. The volume of media consumed and the graphic nature of the content have an impact on mental health. In a study published in 2013, Cohen Silver’s team discovered that those who watched at least four hours of television coverage per day during the week following the September 11 attacks reported increased stress and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They also had a higher risk of developing health problems years later.
It’s hard to compare the experience of living through a war to viewing it on television. However, Cohen Silver’s research suggests that even if people are not in a direct way a part of a crisis, news coverage can have a significant impact on them. Consuming at least six hours of related news coverage each day after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing was connected to higher acute stress than being at the finish line when the explosives went off.
Because few people only watch one or the other, it’s impossible to tell how social media versus traditional news coverage affects mental health, Silver adds. However, there are a few key distinctions. Editors at traditional media sites select which content is too graphic to show and label it as disturbing images with warnings. But people “can take pictures and videos and immediately distribute that [on social media] without warning, potentially without thinking about it,” Cohen Silver says.
Misinformation
The spread of misinformation is also a battlefield on social media. “Russia has been waging a social media and misinformation war for the past 10 to 12 years,” according to Steinhauer. It has only become worse since it invaded Ukraine. As per Reuters, Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia will likely circulate fake information implying that Ukraine has succumbed.
The technology and culture website Input also recently investigated Instagram pages purport to feature “on-the-ground” posts from Ukrainian journalists. However, persons thousands of miles away, including a 21-year-old guy in the United States, operate it.
During a crisis, social media can be beneficial. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy uses it to communicate directly to residents, promote unity and strength among them. As the crisis progresses, social media platforms have also aided Ukrainians in sharing their experiences with the world; (particularly those in Russia who, due to misinformation, do not believe the war is taking place); contacting family members, and finding supplies and assistance.
Masha Mykhaylova is a licensed clinical social worker in San Francisco who was born in Ukraine. The spread of fake news and the constant possibility that online materials have been altered or stripped of crucial context can affect mental health by chipping away at our senses of reality, she says.
“Holding in mind the possibility that you’re going to come across something that’s emotionally manipulative and untrue can have a psychological toll,” she explains.
Psychological toll
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, one recent example is the link between misinformation and poor mental health. A recent study published in JAMA Network Open looked at mental health during the pandemic. It discovered a link between reporting depressive symptoms and believing vaccine disinformation. But the researchers couldn’t say if there was a causal relationship.
The Ukrainian crisis comes after nearly two years of nonstop bad news and fake news about the virus, as well as innumerable stories about climate change, racism, injustice, and other emotionally charged topics. According to Cohen Silver, news coverage of the pandemic has led to mental discomfort, and adding another tough topic to the mix can exacerbate those feelings. Anxious people are more inclined to seek out crisis coverage, according to her research, potentially “fuel[ing] a cycle of distress…from which it’s very difficult to extricate oneself.”
Turning off the screen and walking away can be beneficial for anxious people—and anyone. Cohen Silver says she has chosen to read about the war in Ukraine, based on her study, rather than viewing images or videos that could be psychologically damaging.
Positive actions
Despite the difficulties, “abstaining from the news and social media doesn’t feel like an option” for people like Mykhaylova who have personal ties to Ukraine, she says. “I feel more calm and less disoriented when I’m engaging with what’s going on, especially if it’s content made by Ukrainians. It can definitely be disturbing and enraging…but my reaction feels like a righteous response.”
Lubkova agrees, stating that seeing photographs and films from the war is painful. But it’s much more difficult to accept that others don’t seem to care.
Nonetheless, Mykhaylova believes it is critical to set time limits for watching the news and checking social media. That limit will vary from person to person, and possibly even from day to day. But she believes that being informed should not come at the expense of sleep, food, or time outside. Getting treatment from a therapist can also be beneficial.
The need to constantly update social media is, in part, “a byproduct of platforms and devices that have been purposely built to be addictive,” according to Steinhauer. He believes that keeping involved in the crisis response, whether it is sending money to groups that support Ukrainians, writing to representatives, or supporting individuals in your community, is more vital than having up-to-date information. These positive actions “could be a substitute for the doom-scrolling that the devices and the platforms draw us into, especially when there are these calamitous moments that require all of us to stand up and pay attention.”
Shalashenko, the therapist in Odessa, echoes that message. “I want the whole world to help us survive through this,” she says through a translator, “and stop this nightmare.”