American media is full of troubling images and messages. Whether it’s video games, movies, social media, or other media outlets, our youth are bombarded with negativity. For example:

• Violence. Kids are exposed to abundant amounts of violence in video games, social media, movies, and even the news. And, the violence portrayed in media is gorier and more graphic than ever before.
• Online hatred. On every online platform, harassment and mockery over differences between people has become more prevalent and normalized. People commonly post vicious and insensitive comments that they would never say to another person’s face.
• Political and racial division. Our youth are exposed to intense anger when people disagree. Differences in beliefs, traditions or experiences are not believed or tolerated.
• Extreme views. Content that is shocking gets more engagement online, leading platforms to elevate posts that contain misinformation, conflict between users, or ideologically extreme content.
• Pornography and unrealistic beauty standards. The amount of explicit messaging around bodies and sex has increased exponentially in the digital age. Teens have easy access to extreme pornography. Images and messaging around beauty and body image encourages youth to strive to unrealistic and unattainable looks.

The repeated exposure to disturbing media desensitizes children, and adults as well, to the negative emotional reactions that these experiences would normally produce. Studies have shown that, after enough exposures, the physiological signs of unpleasant emotions disappear, and the viewer becomes numb to the experience.

Desensitization is defined as emotionally insensitive or callous, but it doesn’t only result in people becoming less disturbed by shocking media. Desensitization also:

• Decreases a person’s empathy.
• Increases a person’s aggression.
• Reduces a person’s tendency to intervene in a conflict.
• Diminishes a person’s sympathy for victims of violence, crime, or hate.
• Increases a person’s hopelessness.

With disturbing images and hatred normalized online, youth barely notice questionable and hateful content that is commonly spewed online. Youth often describe mental exhaustion and lack of shock when tragedies strike. Youth that watch pornographic material start to form unrealistic expectations and a distorted reality about sex and tend to experience disappointment with real sexual relationships. Community connection, which is essential for our wellbeing, feels distant, unattainable, and sometimes even unwanted when kids see so much hatred. Violence on media is so mundane, kids ignore it or even glorify it in real life. These are the results of desensitization from repeated exposure to negative media.

How Adults Can Combat Desensitization in Youth

If you are a parent or someone who works with youth, the problems with media may feel dire and insurmountable, but don’t lose hope! Parents, teachers, coaches, and other trusted adults are a powerful influence on youth as well, and you can use your power to combat the problem!

Build Empathy. The ability to understand the feelings of another and see things from someone else’s perspective is a vital life skill, and one that can be improved with practice. Guiding our children in thinking about how different situations look from another person’s point of view builds empathy, so use every opportunity that arises in your daily lives to consider how other people might feel. For example:

• Explain your own emotions during significant events to the youth in your life. Share your experiences with failure, rejection or other strong emotions. Discuss the temptation you may have felt to blame other people or put others down, but that you used healthy coping strategies (discussed below) to deal with the situation instead.
• An important step in developing empathy is learning to accurately label feelings. It can be very difficult for an adolescent to work out what they’re feeling when they are very upset. For example, if your teen does poorly on a test, they are likely feeling disappointed, but they might tell you that their teacher is terrible or that they are too busy to study. You could say, ‘I think you might be feeling disappointed with that grade. What do you think?’ Help your kids identify what triggers their emotions and teach them how to self-regulate.
• Ask open-ended questions that prompt them to interpret other’s mindsets. You might ask, “How do you think your teacher felt when the student yelled at her?” or, “How do you think your friend felt when ​you canceled your plans at the last minute?”
• Help your teen imagine what life is like for other people. You could discuss current events with your teen and ask them what the different people in the news story might be feeling. You could also use movies or TV shows to discuss what characters might be thinking and feeling. Ask them “Why do you think that TV show character acted like that?” There’s no right or wrong answer, you’re just trying to get them to consider other people’s viewpoints.
• Help teens discover what they have in common with other people. You could ask them if they relate to a particular character in a book or TV show and why. You could explore different cultures around the world and look for similarities rather than differences.

Be a Good Role Model. Teens observe the behaviors of the adults in their lives very carefully, even when you think they are ignoring you. If your attitude and actions reflect compassion, teens are much more likely to adopt these values as well. Show an invested interest in helping other people. Demonstrate random acts of kindness anonymously, and encourage teens to consider how they can brighten someone else’s day. Role model active listening (i.e. trying to understand the other person’s point of view without interrupting or thinking about what you want to say while the other person is talking). Also, parents should role model taking breaks from media. If there’s a disturbing news story that the TV is repeatedly playing, announce that you don’t need to continuously view it and turn it off. Take a weekly break from your social media and explain how you feel better afterwards.

Establish Appropriate Media Limits. Have a conversation with your teen about the negative messages on the different forms of media. Share how you feel about them and how media exposure has changed over your lifetime. Ask your teen’s opinion about what they see. Once you’ve had these types of open conversations, ask them what they believe are reasonable limits to establish around media. Parents should not just decide for them what they think will work. Listen to their needs, concerns, and ideas. Work together to find limits that will truly work for your teen. Some suggested limits might be:

• Agree to no phones at family meals.
• Establish a curfew for technology, such as no phones in bedrooms after 11 p.m.
• Require a regular social media break. Taking a break from social media gives us a lot of perspective and a much needed mental health break. Ask everyone in the family to pick a certain time every week to put down the phone for a couple of hours.

Teach Healthy Coping Strategies. Studies show that children who are better at regulating their negative emotions and finding constructive ways to handle their bad moods have more empathy. Teach youth healthy ways to deal with stress and uncomfortable feelings. Ideas include creative activities (drawing, dancing, playing music, etc), exercise, journaling, reading, and relaxation techniques (such as deep breathing or mindfulness). No one strategy works for everyone, so encourage teens to try lots of methods to determine which one works for them.

Volunteer Together. Helping others can be very fulfilling, and if you can show your teen, through example, how enriching it is, they’ll start to make an association between helping someone else and their own joy. Service projects can help youth develop empathy for others and realize how fortunate they are in comparison. There are lots of service projects available to teens, including: organizing a blood drive; hosting a themed event for young kids at the local library; helping an elderly neighbor with yardwork; assisting Habitat for Humanity; holding a collection (such as canned goods for the food bank); or sending care packages to troops. Volunteering as a family at a local charity can provide quality bonding time and help remind teens how meaningful it can feel to be generous.

Never Tolerate Aggression. Under no circumstances should parents ever permit cruelty. It’s normal for kids to occasionally be cruel as they develop, especially among peers or with pets, but that does not mean it should be accepted or brushed off. Do not assume it’s a phase they will grow out of. Instead, correct it immediately and talk about what it feels like to be helpless and abused by someone bigger and stronger than you.

Final Thoughts…

While our children are repeatedly exposed to negative images and messages through media, we can combat the effects by repeatedly exposing our children to other people’s perspectives, viewpoints and experiences. By following the steps above, we can keep our teens sensitive to the world around them despite the media’s influence.