The Dark Side of Technology

What One Video Taught Me About Trauma and Screens

I shouldn’t have watched the Charlie Kirk assassination video.

My brother warned me not to watch it. But I ignored him and watched it before bed, and I reckon it gave me a mild form of PTSD.

I didn’t sleep great and wasn’t as sharp during my talk the next day as I had been the day before.

Regardless of what you think of his politics, the guy didn’t deserve to go out in such a horrific way (But it was ironic he was talking about how good guns are the moment he was shot).

And a week later, I’m still thinking about it and how it gave me a tiny glimpse of what our police officers, doctors, nurses, and soldiers must go through who see stuff like that all the time.

What does years of seeing stuff like that do to someone?

And now the internet puts these videos in front of all of us, even though we weren’t built to process that kind of horror at all, let alone access it at the touch of a button.

I love technology and everything it makes possible.

But after last week, I can’t help reflect on the darker side of what it does.

Apparently the gunman was a gamer who spent huge amounts of time on screens.

I don’t think gaming itself is the problem. That’s more a warning sign that someone is slipping into isolation or violent thinking.

The real issue, I think, is the long, unbroken hours on screens, especially from a young age when a child’s brain is still developing.

Apart from overloading their brain, it means less time out in the real world doing things that build confidence and capability (not to mention what too much screen time does to sleep).

And a big part of why that’s happening I think is that parents are under so much stress trying to pay the mortgage (and often buying things they don’t need) that kids end up parked in front of screens just to keep them quiet.

From there, they start searching for connection online, and can connect with anyone on the planet (Again, this is a good and bad thing depending on how you look at it).

Technology has made life physically easier than ever.

But it has also made it mentally harder as our brains now have to filter more information every day than at any point in human history.

And the sheer volume is rewiring our nervous systems and changing how we think, feel, and connect.

This is not just shaping individual mental health as it is happening millions of times over every day.

And that’s reshaping society as a whole (as evident with the shooting).

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Sorry this week’s blog is a little heavier than usual.

Normally I like to focus on positive things that give me energy.

But I also want to be honest about the things that drain me, and the big lesson for me is this:

I need to be careful about what and how much information I let into my mind.

Plus big respect to the people who deal with real trauma every day. Don’t know how they do it and hope they’re properly supported.