The Privilege of Passing By

AI-generated fruit videos. Scroll. “What I eat in a day.” Scroll. Brutal, unflinching disaster in Nepal as hundreds die from floods. Scroll. “Get ready with me to try out a new nail salon!” Scroll.

Reading this routine may feel unnerving, but nearly all of us have experienced this sequence of content. Social media has taught us to treat disaster with casual callousness. It has made us comfortable scrolling past horrific images of violence and death. When destruction and tragedy are as accessible as they are escapable—simply by closing a tab—it can be hard to feel any obligation to make a difference.

On Aug. 26, flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border left at least 469 people dead and more than 1,000 missing, as walls of water slammed through villages and valleys. A landslide triggered by a glacial collapse in the Himalayan region caused the destruction. Scientists reported that the rock foundation was unstable, partly because of a 2015 earthquake. However, climate change played a major role in accelerating glacier movement and triggering the floods.

One reason the Nepal floods were so publicized was the presence of foreign victims, including up to 90 American tourists who went missing. Nepal drew international attention, but even then, the response to the tragedy felt detached.

Nepal contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet faces some of the most severe consequences of human-driven climate change. Disasters like the floods are not purely “natural”; climate change made them more likely and more severe, and the physical toll falls hardest on those who contributed least. This disconnect between responsibility and suffering on an international scale reflects how separated governments and citizens have become. Despite causing a large share of the problem, wealthier citizens and governments do not feel obligated to help solve it.

Nepal’s government estimated that recovery from the tragedy will cost $4.7 billion, around 10% of Nepal’s annual gross domestic product. The United States has pledged only $3.6 million, despite emitting around 12.7% of global emissions annually. Nepal has argued that the floods result from the climate crisis, requesting international support and funding as climate justice given the country’s low emissions. “We are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create,” Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said. However, wealthy countries have not responded.

Beyond world leaders’ lack of response, individuals have also struggled to respond. As I scrolled through TikTok videos depicting the disaster, I was horrified. But when I opened the comments, I noticed people reacting with GIFs or commenting, “Is this AI?” The advent of artificial intelligence has made us even more removed from what’s going on in our algorithms: we are not sure what we are seeing is real, and even if it is, we don’t seem to care. It is too easy to ignore death when it is on a 6-by-3-inch display. Furthermore, being exposed to every crisis at once can make us feel like we cannot give equal attention to each issue, leaving us unable to do anything at all.

This phenomenon is called “disaster fatigue,” a feeling of emotional and physical exhaustion caused by continuous, unrelenting exposure to crises. Twenty-four-hour news and targeted algorithms have rendered our brains overstimulated by information and unable to process it. Feeling like we are constantly living in an emergency can cause us to disengage and prevent us from taking action or making decisions. Mental health professionals have also used the term “compassion fatigue” to specifically refer to our shrinking capacities for empathy in the face of atrocities.

Social media has supercharged these experiences of fatigue. Short-form videos popularized by TikTok and Instagram Reels have conditioned users to instant dopamine hits. Nearly half of TikTok users surveyed described videos longer than a minute as “stressful.” Users can become addicted to the immediacy of the dopamine they receive, along with the sheer number of options for entertainment available at their fingertips. Losing our attention spans may be costing us our critical thinking skills. When we cannot focus for more than a minute, we can’t think deeply or truly feel for people halfway across the globe.

This feeling of separation from disaster is magnified in youth. Teen and young adult brains are particularly sensitive. Our prefrontal cortexes are still developing and do not yet downregulate emotional responses as efficiently, making global threats feel more personal. Adolescents’ stress response systems remain activated longer than adults’ after stressful events, and prolonged exposure to bad news can keep stress hormones circulating and cause cognitive exhaustion. Young people also naturally seek stimulation and connection, making them more susceptible to behaviors like “doomscrolling,” which bombards the brain with stress and leads to digital burnout.

Nepal’s floods are not an isolated incident; they are a domino in a long, long chain of climate and social disasters. War and genocide run rampant and unchecked, and responses from international leaders and governing bodies have not been enough. These intersecting problems are often called “polycrises,” situations where distinct crises overlap and intensify one another, making solutions feel out of reach. It can be difficult for young people to engage in a world of polycrises; voting, protesting, or working hard may not yield tangible improvements, eroding personal agency. That lack of agency can often lead youth to feel deterministically that the future is ruined, further discouraging them from thinking about what they can do to change it. Many of us have stopped trying, instead slipping into learned helplessness because fixing anything feels impossible.

At Harvard, a place full of politically engaged students and future world leaders and changemakers, one might expect a substantial difference; instead, one finds disappointment. I notice that my peers are equally disconnected from violence that happens across the globe. We can talk in theory about how neorealism explains foreign intervention in Sudan, but we cannot really empathize with the civilians suffering. Many of us have seen footage of the Nepal floods online, but most comments have been limited to “That’s crazy,” with little follow-up. This is not to say that I am above this: I know that I have also seen people suffering and dying on my feed, perhaps felt bad about it, and then ultimately been able to move on with my day. It is uncomfortable to admit, but it is important to recognize.

You can’t care equally about everything, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about anything. When you see something awful on your feed, take a break and reflect. Write about what you feel, research the context of current events, and look for ways to donate or be active locally. It is ultimately a privileged position for your biggest problem to be feeling emotionally numb to a disaster that exists thousands of miles away. People in Nepal and other countries who are facing the brunt of climate change cannot ignore the consequences of American emissions.

You might not prevent every disaster, but a donation can change lives. At Harvard, resources for research and activism exist and can change lives if affiliates use them. It shocks me when we view international disasters as being wholly separate from us. Harvard has a place in the international community, and we would not be the university we are today without it.

We have an obligation to each other, and to the world, to try to feel something. Being a Harvard student is an impossibly and profoundly privileged experience, and we have to use it.

Please donate to Nepal disaster relief funds here. Anika Gupta ’30 (anikagupta@college.harvard.edu) is comping the “Harvard Independent.”