I don't wanna know what happens in the world

03 Mar, 2026

Trigger warning: Everything you’ve seen in the news + mental health and anxiety

School shootings are not common in the country where I live. In fact, we can count them on one hand and still have fingers left over. When they do happen, they’re a true anomaly because guns here are not easy to access. Still, back in 2017, there was a shooting at a school in the north, where a teenager, around 14 years old, opened fire on his teacher and several classmates.

The tragedy unfolded the way these events usually do. After causing the damage, the young boy took his own life. His reasons were never known, and the media blamed depression as usual. It later came out that he had stolen the gun from his father, who, being a wealthy man, had the means to legally own and carry a firearm.

The attack was captured by a security camera inside the classroom where it happened. Someone, for some reason, leaked the video to the internet. Within hours, the country’s biggest media outlets were publishing it on their websites, alongside crime scene photos showing the condition of the victims.

At that time, I was addicted to the news and didn’t even know it. I scrolled Twitter all day, at all times, on my desktop and on my phone. I wanted to be aware of everything, and when a story piqued my curiosity, I would dive deeper into it. The day the tragedy I mentioned at the beginning of this post happened was the day I decided I didn’t want to know what was going on in the world anymore.

The video showed up on my timeline and gave me a trauma that, honestly, still triggers me when I remember it. I chose to watch it, but those images reached me against my will. The impact that news had on me was so strong that a few months later I deleted my Twitter account, and I haven’t had one since.

And I know, we’ve all seen a traumatic video online at some point in our lives. It’s almost like a rite of passage, especially if you used the internet in the Y2K era when everything was even less regulated. But maybe at that moment my mental health simply said, “This is as far as I can go, bro”.

This comes up because over the past couple of years the possibility of a third world war has been breathing down our necks, and every single day a new large-scale tragedy takes over the headlines: pedophiles, invasions of other countries, hate crimes, and the list goes on. Not to mention that, on top of that, I also have to cope with the local tragedies in my own country.

Several years ago, I decided to ignore what’s happening in the world, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who struggles with anxiety or has a high level of empathy.

I know this is an unpopular and very privileged position, because I understand and respect that staying informed—especially in times like these—is necessary in order to act prudently in case of an emergency, particularly in countries at war where there’s a constant threat. However, nothing that appears in the news is within my control, and the endless flow of information I could be consuming would ultimately just be fuel for frustration.

This is something I even discussed in therapy for a while. My therapist explained that these anxious thoughts related to tragedies or news could make my body believe that I am—or was—in those dangerous situations, further dysregulating my nervous system and potentially leading me (in a more extreme case) into a depressive episode.

Understanding this only made stepping away from the news make even more sense. When I read about a violent story or learned of a tragedy, my brain would automatically start thinking about the suffering of the people involved, to the point where I imagined things beyond what the news itself described.

It’s very similar to a storytelling principle common in horror: it’s scarier to show less and leave more to the imagination than to show the crime itself. Not knowing exactly what happened or what was done to the character on screen is often more terrifying than witnessing their fate.

My brain took it upon itself to fill in the blanks—but instead of interpreting fiction, it did so with the horrors of reality. In other words: a true torture for my nervous system.

I don’t like being lukewarm. In fact, I consider myself naturally rebellious and I have a strong sense of justice. But for me, the time came to accept that if I continued consuming the news, my mental health would keep spiraling downward to the point where I wouldn’t be able to function in society.

And I’m not proud of it, because I believe that for things to improve, we have to call out everything that’s wrong. Turning a blind eye to atrocities to protect our own sensitivity IS NOT THE SOLUTION.¹ Much of the problem is how the media operates and how those stories are presented.

Still, stepping away from all of that was what I had to do. If it’s what you also need to do, don’t feel bad about it. Step away from the news.

I believe that when something truly important happens, I’ll find out one way or another. But no one needs to constantly feed on small fragments of tragic information, most of the time based on what “could happen”, designed to generate anxiety and keep people glued to news portals so those assholes can cash in on clicks.

✉ Reply via email ✉

#2026 #eng