Imagine if there was an account called "News Flashing" and it posted breaking news as seizure-inducing flashing black and white images, with a large group of supporters insisting that it's completely justified because it gets the Important News the attention they deserve, and actually if you block News Flashing you're doing a bad thing.
Now, given how self-evidently ridiculous that is, and how it's clear that you could just get your news from elsewhere, you can go ahead and mute or block that account that keeps posting important stuff presented in a way that hits your emotional weak points. Curate your feed to be safe for you.
Passively witnessing horrible things that are happening, which you already know are happening, because someone made you feel an obligation to keep looking long after you've gained all the education you possibly could, is irresponsible and a bad use of your time.
You, as a person on the internet watching things happen, have limited resources to materially affect these things. You can donate to some fundraisers, you can share some educational resources, you can consider involving yourself in organizations that work with this stuff more meaningfully. That's about it.
If you do obtain special skills that can help with a horrible situation, what you will get hammered in there is that when you leave work, you leave work. You take breaks, because if you don't stop dealing with whatever shit you're dealing with to reset and recharge, you will get worse at your job until your mistakes start becoming a liability.
That's for people whose actions actually do something meaningful. If they are obligated to stop and rest, then you, who are just burning yourself out by looking at things without doing anything, absolutely have to.
Use the fucking mute function. Use the fucking filters.
"Oh but think about the people who are living through the horrors, they can't take breaks, think about how privileged it is to be able to!"
Yeah that's part of the horrors. Doesn't make doomscrolling productive. Trained firefighters go to bed and sleep while there are ongoing fires somewhere in the world, because while they might be able to get up and respond to a nearby emergency when needed, it's not feasible to have them stretch themselves thin to cover everything they could possibly help with. Reality will not realign to what is moral, your actions need to align with what's effective.
