How the abnormal gets normalised – and what to do about it

As we browse the news, it's easy to become desensitised to awful events. Amanda Ruggeri explores the psychology, and the steps you can take to avoid it happening.

When people talk about "normalising" something in 2024, it's often with a positive slant. On social media and off, I've seen calls to normalise everything from postpartum bodies to having mental health conversations at work. The idea, of course, is to break down taboos that can be unhelpful, even dangerous.

But there's another kind of normalisation, and it's one that many people are far less aware of. It is less conscious, more pernicious – and can be harmful. This is the normalisation of trends, situations and events that really shouldn't be "normal" at all. You also might hear it referred to as "desensitisation", or "habituation".

Think of the wars in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. The shocking events at the start of these conflicts were new and unexpected, elements which psychologists know draws the mind's attention. As time has passed, media coverage still happens, but these events are now less likely to lead the news in countries like the US, nor arise quite as often in the cultural conversation. Sadly, when a war has lasted months or years, research suggests that an extra week of fighting does not have the impact it did on day one.

This desensitisation also applies day-to-day life. Inner-city youth who grow up with violence are more likely to wind up thinking violence is normal, for example, while people expressed more anxiety about Covid-19 when the death toll was low than when it climbed into the hundreds of thousands. One particularly intriguing study, meanwhile, shows that people living in countries that are more exposed to the negative impacts of climate change actually see climate change as being lower-risk.

Other research shows that you can even become habituated to your own negative behaviour: when volunteers lied repeatedly in order to get more money, their lies became bigger and bigger over the course of the experiment – and the parts of their brain associated with emotions activated less and less. The takeaway, the researchers concluded, was that the more we do something, even something we know is wrong, the less uncomfortable with it we become.

Be exposed to anything enough, in other words, and that thing winds up being normalised. Even if it's bad.

Of course, this has upsides: to some degree, humans need to be able to adapt to new circumstances and situations, no matter how dire. Our species likely wouldn't have got very far – or, at least, wouldn't have had the emotional capacity to problem-solve, imagine, and create – if we'd walked around in a perpetual state of shock and anxiety.

But there are clear pitfalls. For one, this adaptability may be part of why humans have difficulty grappling with what sociologists call "slow violence" – those catastrophes that unfold without seeming urgency, making it difficult to recognise how much harm has been done until months or even years later. Think of the decades-long dumping of chemical waste that created Mississippi's "cancer alley", or the rise in global emissions.

It can also perpetuate a vicious cycle. The study on inner-city violence found that participants were more likely to perpetrate violence if they thought it was normal, for example. But this applies to larger, more complex issues, too. If someone doesn't think climate change is a big deal, why would they be motivated to do anything about it? If their awareness of humanitarian disasters is fading, will they still be as likely to share their concerns with representatives or donate to relevant charities?

How normalisation happens

When it comes to media consumption, this raises two questions: how can publishers cover a topic without desensitising their audience to it? And – as a smart, informed media consumer – how can you navigate the news to make sure you're not running that same risk? 

Researchers have been exploring how being exposed to the same news issue over and over affects consumers. One study, for example, found that news consumers were more likely to become annoyed by coverage, and even to avoid it, when they felt like it was repetitive.

It's not just that viewers crave novelty, the researchers write. It's also that people get especially annoyed when they perceive that nothing's changing or improving. "Some users are particularly negative about the lack of progress and long, drawn-out coverage of the issue, which is in part traceable to the political actors involved", the researchers write.

This point is concerning. There are various subjects where ignoring them upholds the status quo and the powers-that-be. Think of how much less likely businesses and governments might be to take action on climate change, for example, if no one ever talked about it. Cynically, this could mean that the more leaders make minimal progress on an issue, the more bored with hearing about it people become. Theoretically, this could lead to that issue being covered less and less – and any pressure for progress on it falling apart, too.

Then there's the other issue, especially common when viewing news reports of other people suffering: if we feel too distressed by what we see, it can lead us to feel burnt out and want to shut out the coverage altogether.

How to avoid becoming desensitised

So what can we do? How can you stay on top of the news, without getting overwhelmed or desensitised? How can we navigate the many issues facing the world today, striking a balance between refusing to accept them as "normal" but also managing to carry on, ourselves?

When it comes to news consumption, researchers suggest consuming news more mindfully, such as at more specific times, when feeling overwhelmed by a particular crisis. Given the importance of novelty, I'd also suggest that, to stay well-informed, ensure your media diet is diverse. Even if it is a particular topic or crisis that you want to know more about, expand beyond the same outlet or even type of media. If you're following the Gaza-Israel war, don't just doom-scroll breaking news headlines; seek out foreign policy analyses and first-person essays, watch documentaries, listen to audio books, read poetry. And, crucially, consume perspectives from both sides of the war.

It's also important to remind yourself to zoom out. We'll be exploring this more in future columns, but for now, remember that a different angle on the present is to think longer-term. Perhaps that's looking backwards, trying to understand how we got here by swapping out some of your daily news coverage for, say, history books or documentaries. Or it might mean looking forwards – what might this mean for tomorrow? – and seeking out analyses that think about what our current decisions might mean for one, 100, and even 1,000 years from now.

What about our tendency to adapt to circumstances that affect us most directly, even those we shouldn't just accept as "normal"?

The first step is recognising that such habituation is happening at all. Take a moment to reflect: what things are you growing accustomed to, either in your household, your community, or your country, that, really, you wish you weren't?

Only then can you plan some actions. Some researchers suggest meeting "slow violence" with "slow resistance", or with "slow nonviolence", including incremental, everyday acts as simple as sharing knowledge about a topic.

The researchers behind the lying-to-get-more-money habituation study also suggest finding emotional distance from circumstances in order to view it with fresh eyes. If something you don't like about your own country is starting to feel "normal" to you, for example, you might talk to someone who lives in a different country, read about how the issue is handled elsewhere or (for those with the means) even travel abroad.

I'd also argue that, if there's an issue that is important to you, don't assume you'll feel as emotionally committed to it in a month, or a year, as you do now. Instead, turn taking action into a habit. Put in your calendar that you'll regularly spend five minutes writing to your political representatives, for example. Or set up a monthly, recurring donation to a charity that represents a cause you care about, instead of donating piecemeal when the motivation strikes. (Bonus: research has found that taking action on something distressing makes "burnout" on that topic less likely).

Perhaps above all, I'd keep one truth in mind: from the global slave trade to South Africa's apartheid, there are plenty of horrible situations that – for decades, even centuries – felt entrenched, impossible to change and that, at some point or another, would have been the "new normal".

But they did change. And circumstances we don't want to be part of our children's futures, or our own, can too.

*Amanda Ruggeri is an award-winning science and features journalist. She posts about expertise, media literacy and more on Instagram at @mandyruggeri.

--

If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram.