. He gets propaganda videos from the White House that pair football touchdowns with bombs hitting their targets (he does like football).
“It’s just that we have different interests and they funnel those interests into kind of categories and political ways, I guess,” says Estella. “They” refers to social media companies and their algorithms that determine each user’s unique feed.
“It’s just interesting looking at his phone versus mine.”
It’s an example of how New Zealand’s young people are experiencing conflict in today’s world, in isolated spaces that pander to certain views and stereotypes. It can lead to feelings of isolation and hopelessness while desensitising them to the suffering of others, according to young people and researchers.
It’s a marked difference from how their parents’ and grandparents viewed earlier wars, which was historically a shared experience through radio and TV broadcasts, or a newspaper on the kitchen table, according to Dr Mona Krewel, who specialises in politics at Victoria University of Wellington.
“Earlier generations often encountered news collectively, through television news or newspapers mediated by adults, while today’s children increasingly encounter information alone in fragmented, algorithmically curated social media feeds.”
A substantial body of research shows that today’s young people are inundated with real-world violence and war footage even if they are not actively seeking it on social media, according to Krewel. The result is widespread anxiety and desensitisation for those who frequently view violence and other disturbing content, she says.
Estella’s feed is currently full of memes (images or video often meshed with humour) inspired by the Middle East conflict.
“It’s like kind of softening the blow of what’s going on. It’s putting memes on it to soften it and to normalise what is going on, make it funny rather than something we should be concerned about.”
It’s like kind of softening the blow of what’s going on.
Estella, 18
However, in general, Estella’s social media feed, when it comes to all the current conflicts, “has made me really sad a lot recently”, she says.
“Not very positive feelings.”
Thomas, a 17-year-old student from Wellington, remembers being mesmerised by a 90-minute video, shot on a camera attached to a soldier on the front lines in Ukraine. It wasn’t particularly violent, but it gamified the conflict.
“I think it does dehumanise it slightly,” says Thomas, describing a lack of any emotional response to witnessing conflict and human tragedy up close through social media.
The extreme violence that Thomas has witnessed on social media includes the assassination of Charlie Kirk . The American right-wing political activist was shot in the neck during a university campus debate in Utah in front of about 3000 people. Many were live-streaming the event online when the deadly shot came, accidentally capturing and broadcasting an alleged murder in real time.
Thomas viewed the gruesome footage on a friend’s phone hours after it happened and before social media companies could scrub it from users’ feeds.
“It was just before I went into a maths test and I felt quite sick for a while.”
The close-up imagery of Kirk’s assassination stayed in his head.
“I mean, I mentioned it to my parents and remembered it pretty well for a while, but I [don’t] know. I think I’ve got a lot more desensitised and it’s now just like a meme.”
I felt quite sick for a while … I think I’ve got a lot more desensitised and it’s now just like a meme.
Thomas, 17
Other gruesome footage can be random and not political. For instance, last year Thomas saw numerous car crash videos doing the rounds on social media including some with a bloody aftermath.
Dr Rachel Billington from the University of Otago.
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Dr Rachel Billington from the University of Otago studies how social media shapes the political identities of New Zealand’s young people. In 2022, she surveyed almost 500 young people about politics and social media use. It was during the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which also played out as a propaganda battle on social media. Drone footage of tank battles and videos documenting life on the frontlines uploaded by soldiers with smartphones were easy to come by.
“One of the things that they really struggled with was the sense of impotence, the sense that people were suffering on the other side of the world and they could bear witness to it, but there was nothing they could really do with that witnessing.”
The young people surveyed felt the same about other social issues, such as climate change, Billington says.
There was also a sense of confusion with conflict content that was interdispersed with other subjects, ranging from the silly to the mundane, says Billington, describing it as an “emotional rollercoaster”.
Violent, pornographic and other disturbing content is difficult for children and teenagers to process because of the stages of brain development, according to Dr Samantha Marsh, who researches social media use and mental health in young people. Parents and other caregivers might confuse intelligence for brain maturation, she says.
“You could have the smartest 15-year-old or 13-year-old in the world, but it doesn’t mean that they are prepared to see this content.”
Marsh is part of a group of researchers and tech industry insiders who are advocating for a minimum age of 16 for social media in New Zealand . Last year, Australia enacted a ban on social media for those under 16, a move that more countries are considering.
Before the age of 16, many young people lack logical reasoning, preventing them from turning away from content that they know is harming them, says Marsh.
Billington isn’t in favour of an Australian-style social media ban here , citing the social and connectivity benefits of platforms, especially for marginalised young people. Instead, she says that the algorithms within social media platforms should be critically examined.
A number of the young people she surveyed in 2022 recognised social media’s harmful effects and took measures to police their own use. One young man decided to access social media only from a desktop computer rather than have it at his finger tips on a phone. Another young person interviewed expressed regret for signing up to social media so young, at age 11.
“They spoke a lot about the sense of trying to break through addiction and… defy the logics of these algorithmic technologies, which are really designed to keep them engaged and to keep them scrolling and scrolling and scrolling no matter the cost.”
