Every morning, Rasha opens her phone and scrolls through an endless feed of contradictions. A reel of someone dancing barefoot in Bali. A news flash about families displaced in Gaza. An ad for luxury watches. Another explosion. Another crying child. As news became just another piece of content, squeezed between influencer vlogs and product promotions, Rasha noticed something shift.
“Through the years, I’ve noticed my reaction change,” she says. “Of course I care, it breaks my heart, but it doesn’t shatter me anymore. I just keep scrolling.” Like many others who have lived in a digital world saturated with crisis content, where footage of war, displacement, and disaster is available 24/7, Rasha finds herself suspended between compassion and emotional numbness.
Mental health professionals say this kind of detachment is not uncommon Dubai Health. It’s a quiet, often invisible side effect of living in a world where tragedy is constant and connection is filtered through a screen.
“Emotional numbness is a coping mechanism,” says Daniela Semedo, a clinical psychologist at BPS Clinic. “It happens when people are exposed to distressing images or stories so often that their minds begin to shut down emotionally, not because they don’t care, but because they’re overwhelmed.”
According to Semedo, the mind does this to protect itself. When tragedy becomes a daily backdrop, whether through social media, breaking news alerts, or forwarded videos, the emotional system can blunt its own responses as a survival strategy.
“We’re not meant to process this much trauma at once,” she adds. “Repeated exposure to violent imagery can desensitise people, even those who have never lived through war themselves.”
For those who have experienced war firsthand, that desensitisation can be even more complex, part of a wider set of symptoms that includes avoidance, hypervigilance, or disconnection from others.
“In survivors of war or forced displacement, emotional numbness can show up as flatness, silence, or even seeming indifference,” explains Rahaf Kobeissi, trauma therapist and founder of Rays Your Mental Health. “But this is not apathy; it’s a deeply protective response to unprocessed trauma.”
This news report is brought to you by The Dubai Headlines.
