Everyone is exhausted. I bet you won’t even click on this.

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During the past few weeks, my phone has served me live footage of a man being shot, a dying toddler and a series of statistics so horrific they're almost impossible to believe in their veracity, had we not been witness to a genocide being played out in tiny squares for the past two years.

If you're as chronically online as I am, you probably saw most of the same. You're probably also exhausted — although I'm not sure that's actually the right word. 

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Traumatised is probably closer to the mark — and if you're not traumatised, then you're not paying attention. It's a sentiment TikTok musician Amelia Bates captured perfectly with a song that quickly went viral, amassing hundreds of thousands of likes. 

In 'a song about being desensitised', Amelia sings: "Really I should have been sleeping. My phone keeps me up way too late. I've never known something so bad."

The comments painted the picture further: we're in an epidemic of desensitised grief.

"'We are leaping into grief, as if we had embraced it as a form of recreation.' I heard this recently while watching Call the Midwife and I think it's a perfect way to sum up the internet sometimes," wrote one user poignantly.

"I saw two people die on TikTok in the span of four hours yesterday, and they're trying to convince us it's normal," wrote another. 

"I've been wondering all day why my heart feels so heavy. Now I think I might be mourning the part of me that would have been shocked," wrote a third.

Counsellor and psychotherapist Julie Sweet from Seaway Counselling says she's noticed a distinct uptick in clients reporting overwhelm, desensitisation and even depression as a result of the news cycle.

"A lot of clients struggle to regulate themselves in the current climate," she said.

"Vicarious trauma, also known as secondary trauma, is the process of taking on another person's pain during their challenging or traumatic experiences so deeply that it begins to affect your own mental and emotional well-being.

"It's commonly discussed in the context of first responders, therapists and humanitarian workers — and yes, it can absolutely occur through social media."

The ability of our phones to steal focus from our families and work has long been established, but the concentration of horrific news — and the subsequent vitriol between increasingly opposed members of the comment sections — means that while we can't look away, a growing number of us are desperate to. 

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"Some have implemented self-imposed boundaries to moderate and restrict exposure, while others have chosen to step away from social media entirely," agreed Sweet.

"Increasingly, I see clients presenting with heightened vigilance and awareness around news cycles — feeling fearful, experiencing anticipatory anxiety, and struggling with a sense of helplessness or despair."

In my own circle, the feelings are the same.

"I cry almost every day over a new image online, but how do you look away when it's only your extreme privilege that lets you? Surely it's the bare minimum to stay engaged with reality," said one.

"My husband has gone off all social media," another told me, "but that makes me so angry, because a lot of the activism that is happening online is the only way to make your voice heard.

"I feel like it's a copout to just remove yourself from the conversation entirely."

A fellow parent at the school gate tells me that Charlie Kirk's assassination was the final straw for him, with the way it fuelled the rapid culture wars prompting him to disengage entirely.

"I just do not have the bandwidth to engage anymore," he said simply.

This push-pull between feeling a need to protect our mental health and the duty to engage in online activism around issues we want our government to pay more attention to is a uniquely modern conundrum, but one that we can navigate with safeguards in place, says Sweet. 

"The key is intentionality and boundaries in my clinical opinion," she explained. 

"A practical strategy is to schedule set times to consume news or social media, rather than allowing it to drip-feed into your day.

"For example, you might allow yourself two windows, such as 8am and 7:30pm, for 30 minutes each."

"Equally important is balance," Sweet continued, "pair exposure to heavier content with restorative practices.

"This could mean grounding activities such as exercise, walking, journaling, listening to podcasts, self-care, or connecting with friends and family.

"For those involved in activism, it can also help to alternate between online engagement and tangible, offline actions that create a sense of contribution and agency. We all have a deep need to feel a sense of belonging."

Feature Image: Getty.