By Annie Margaret
When graphic videos go viral, like the recent fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, it can feel impossible to protect yourself from seeing things you did not consent to see. But there are steps you can take.
Social media platforms are designed to maximize engagement, not protect your peace of mind. The major platforms have also reduced their content moderation efforts over the past year or so. That means upsetting content can reach you even when you never chose to watch it.
You do not have to watch every piece of content that crosses your screen, however. Protecting your own mental state is not avoidance or denial. As a researcher who studies ways to counteract the negative effects of social media on mental health and well-being, I believe it’s a way of safeguarding the bandwidth you need to stay engaged, compassionate and effective.
Why this matters
Research shows that repeated exposure to violent or disturbing media can increase stress, heighten anxiety and contribute to feelings of helplessness. These effects are not just short-term. Over time, they erode the emotional resources you rely on to care for yourself and others.
Protecting your attention is a form of care. Liberating your attention from harmful content is not withdrawal. It is reclaiming your most powerful creative force: your consciousness.
Just as with food, not everything on the table is meant to be eaten. You wouldn’t eat something spoiled or toxic simply because it was served to you. In the same way, not every piece of media laid out in your feed deserves your attention. Choosing what to consume is a matter of health.
And while you can choose what you keep in your own kitchen cabinets, you often have less control over what shows up in your feeds. That is why it helps to take intentional steps to filter, block and set boundaries.
Practical steps you can take
Fortunately, there are straightforward ways to reduce your chances of being confronted with violent or disturbing videos. Here are four that I recommend:
- Turn off autoplay or limit sensitive content. Note that these settings can vary depending on device, operating system and app version, and can change.
- Use keyword filters. Most platforms allow you to mute or block specific words, phrases or hashtags. This reduces the chance that graphic or violent content slips into your feed.
- Curate your feed. Unfollow accounts that regularly share disturbing images. Follow accounts that bring you knowledge, connection or joy instead.
- Set boundaries. Reserve phone-free time during meals or before bed. Research shows that intentional breaks reduce stress and improve well-being.
Screen capture by The Conversation, CC BY-ND
Reclaim your agency
Social media is not neutral. Its algorithms are engineered to hold your attention, even when that means amplifying harmful or sensational material. Watching passively only serves the interests of the social media companies. Choosing to protect your attention is a way to reclaim your agency.
The urge to follow along in real time can be strong, especially during crises. But choosing not to watch every disturbing image is not neglect; it is self-preservation. Looking away protects your ability to act with purpose. When your attention is hijacked, your energy goes into shock and outrage. When your attention is steady, you can choose where to invest it.
You are not powerless. Every boundary you set – whether it is turning off autoplay, filtering content or curating your feed – is a way of taking control over what enters your mind. These actions are the foundation for being able to connect with others, help people and work for meaningful change.
More resources
I’m the executive director of the Post-Internet Project, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people navigate the psychological and social challenges of life online. With my team, I designed the evidence-backed PRISM intervention to help people manage their social media use.
Our research-based program emphasizes agency, intention and values alignment as the keys to developing healthier patterns of media consumption. You can try the PRISM process for yourself with an online class I am launching through Coursera in October 2025. You can find the course, Values Aligned Media Consumption, by searching for Annie Margaret at the University of Colorado Boulder on Coursera. The course is aimed at anyone 18 and over, and the videos are free to watch.
Annie Margaret is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Creative Technology & Design at the ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado Boulder.
JimboXYZ says
All one needs to do is assess the threat for their immediate surroundings of a world, scroll on if it might as well have happened in an alternate universe. The Kirk thing, that was Utah, for all it mattered to any of the rest of us, it might as well happened in North Korea. End of the day, pay attention for the type of event it was. Anything campus of a University I may attend is the Songwriter’s Festival of events. How triggering could that be, sitting around listening to country music ? If one goes to a social movement event, expect the extremes of the human race, no control over those folks. Maybe the DSC has a nut job in the crowd, highly unlikely. Kork makes a living off debating woke-tards. At the very best behaved it’s a civil interaction, otherwise someone has their ego & pride take the “L” in the exchange. Some take that too personal ? Who knows what the angst of this assassin had built up. Better not to be around the event & those triggering the meltdown. If you aren’t there, it won’t happen to you. Live another day to see what someone else can come up with for inflation on everything for a daily life, higher taxes, approvals for growth and everything else that has ruined our lives in America in the name of faux progress. The longer I live, the more nature’s own cycles of sunrise & sunset is the best way for a dull & boring lifetime. The storms in daily life may bring their share of misery. Some social media instigator is after fame & fortune for being nothing more than an agitator & that irritation, don’t empower & enable that for them. Just a paragraph of advice , take it or not.
James says
WTF?
Is this the same JimboXYZ?
I’m almost as perplexed as Ray W. is of the Laura Loomer and friends show.
Just an opinion.
James says
Regarding “social media,” just turn it off… I did loooooooong ago.
There was a time when I had thought the auto industry was the only one to reinvent the wheel every year… not so apparently.
Just my opinion.
James says
I guess JimboXYZ decided to cut back on some non-essential expenditures… like cable TV.
God truly works in strange ways.
Just an observation.
Skibum says
Jimbo, lest you forget, it was at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas in 2017 where an unhinged mass murderer with several dozen long rifles, some with bump stocks, targeted those in attendance from an upper story room in one of the adjacent casino/hotels. 60 innocent music festival attendees were slaughtered and another 413 were wounded by his bullets. The massacre caused total panic, and a total of more than 800 music festival attendees received various injuries trying to escape to a safe place in that open arena.
Your comment above about you worrying that “the DNC” might have a nut job in some large crowd ready to commit mass murder is interesting, as if you somehow have been deluded into thinking that only liberal, democrat radicals are the ones going around killing innocent folks. And maybe you have been deceived by the fake extremist “media” putting out falsehoods to their sheeple. In the Las Vegas mass shooting’s aftermath, one right-wing extremist propaganda outlet falsely reported, without one scintilla of evidence, that the shooter was a registered democrat, which he was not. Another extremist outlet spread the conspiracy theory that there was a second shooter who got away – also completely false. A Russian “news” agency spread fake information on Facebook that the shooter had been connected to a “terrorist organization” – also completely fake news that people ate up as if it were golden nuggets of truth instead of the crap it actually was. Even other extremist propaganda outlets falsely reported that the shooter was part of “antifa” – again, absolute nonsense that was also discredited by the conservative Republican sheriff and his investigators as well as the FBI. That sheriff is now the Republican governor of Nevada… Joe Lombardo.
So, please, consider that your skewed belief system that it is people from the “DNC”, or who are “liberal, or are part of “antifa”, or who are “terrorists” are the ones you and the rest of the populace have to watch out for. Next time you are in a crowd of people, it just might be that lone, all-American white boy from a conservative, Mormon, Trump supporting republican family who comes out of nowhere with a gun and deadly intent to end people’s lives because of some perceived slight or disagreement that you know nothing about. And it may just be one of those liberal, “antifa” types who runs toward you to save your life if you happen to have been in the target zone of an unhinged wacko with a gun.
Here’s the link to the Wikipedia narrative of the Las Vegas mass shooting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
James says
Ski, you obviously read JimboXYZ’s post more carefully then I.
“… Kork makes a living off debating woke-tards. At the very best behaved it’s a civil interaction… ”
Obviously “Kork” is a typo… not an indication of any misgivings about “Kirk” he might have had… and he didn’t mention Biden.
For a moment I almost believed in miracles.
Just admitting… my mistake.