Are We Becoming Resistant to Emotion?
There was a time when a small emotional stimulus was enough to move us.
A beautiful sunrise could make us pause.
A child’s smile could bring happiness.
A piece of music could touch the heart.
An act of kindness could remain in our memory for years.
A tragic event could deeply disturb us.
Today, something appears to be changing.
We are surrounded by an unprecedented volume of images, sounds, information, entertainment, controversy and emotional stimulation. Every time we open a social-media platform, an algorithm is waiting to present something new, surprising, exciting, frightening, provocative or emotionally extreme.
The next video must be more exciting than the previous one.
The next headline must be more shocking.
The next controversy must be bigger.
The next image must produce a stronger emotional reaction.
As observed by scientist Dr. Ajai Kumar Sonkar, perhaps without realizing it, we are training our brains to expect high-intensity stimulation as the new normal.
From stimulation to adaptation
In medicine, repeated exposure to certain drugs can produce resistance or tolerance, meaning that the same dose produces a smaller effect and a greater dose may be required to produce a similar response.
The brain is not becoming “drug-resistant” because of social media, of course. But there is an interesting analogy.
Repeated exposure to intense stimulation can lead to adaptation and desensitization. What once seemed extraordinary can gradually become ordinary.
What was once exciting becomes ordinary.
What was once shocking becomes familiar.
What was once emotionally powerful becomes just another piece of content.
The threshold for capturing our attention may gradually rise.
This does not necessarily mean that the human brain has become permanently altered. Rather, repeated exposure can influence attention, reward expectations and emotional responsiveness, creating a state in which ordinary stimuli may feel less compelling.
The brain under permanent pre-stimulation
This is where an engineering analogy becomes useful.
A material or structure can be prestressed before an external force is applied. Its subsequent response to an additional force is therefore different from that of a system starting from an unstressed state.
Our digital environment may be creating something analogous, metaphorically speaking, in the brain.
Before we encounter the next event, we are already stimulated.
We are already carrying hundreds of images, conversations, notifications, advertisements, opinions, videos and emotional impressions from the previous few hours.
The brain is no longer approaching the next stimulus from a quiet baseline.
It is approaching it from a pre-stimulated state.
Consequently, ordinary experiences may struggle to compete.
A quiet conversation cannot compete with a rapidly edited video.
A thoughtful scientific explanation cannot compete with outrage.
A peaceful landscape cannot compete with an explosion.
Kindness cannot compete with controversy.
Silence cannot compete with constant novelty.
Dr. Sonkar’s observation raises a central concern: we may be creating an environment in which the brain is continuously stimulated before the next stimulus even arrives.
And this may be one of the most subtle costs of the digital age.
The algorithm rewards intensity
Social-media algorithms are not designed primarily to protect our emotional balance. They are designed to predict what will keep us watching, clicking, reacting and returning.
Content that produces strong reactions can therefore receive an enormous advantage.
Anger generates comments.
Fear generates attention.
Controversy generates arguments.
Sexual imagery generates curiosity.
Violence generates shock.
Humiliation generates sharing.
Extremes generate engagement.
The system learns from our behaviour, and then gives us more of what keeps us engaged.
Eventually, the algorithm is not merely showing us what we like.
It may also be teaching us what to like.
This creates a feedback loop:
Stimulus → reaction → engagement → algorithmic amplification → stronger stimulus → stronger reaction.
Over time, the emotional volume can keep increasing.
The concern is not simply that algorithms respond to human preferences, but that human preferences and algorithmic amplification can begin reinforcing one another.
When tragedy becomes content
Perhaps the most disturbing example is our response to human tragedy.
Imagine a fatal accident.
A person has lost a life. A family has lost someone they love.
Yet the tragedy may quickly become a video, a thumbnail, a headline and an opportunity for millions of reactions.
Someone presses “like.”
Someone presses a heart.
Someone shares it.
Someone comments.
Of course, a heart emoji does not necessarily mean that the person is happy about the tragedy. People use digital reactions in many different ways.
But something profound has happened.
A complex human emotional experience has been compressed into a button.
The interface does not distinguish adequately between compassion, shock, sadness, fascination and entertainment.
Everything becomes engagement.
And engagement becomes data.
This is where technology can create an uncomfortable distance between witnessing suffering and emotionally processing suffering.
What happens to peaceful things?
This is perhaps the most important question.
What happens to the things that are naturally quiet?
Peace.
Patience.
Compassion.
Contemplation.
Nature.
Science.
Music.
Reading.
Conversation.
Silence.
They do not shout.
They do not demand immediate reaction.
They do not constantly change.
They do not produce an emotional explosion every few seconds.
Therefore, in an attention economy built around stimulation, they can easily be pushed to the back seat.
This does not mean that people have stopped appreciating peaceful things.
It means that peaceful things increasingly have to compete against an environment engineered for maximum stimulation.
When intensity becomes the currency of attention, peaceful and meaningful experiences can become disadvantaged simply because they are quiet.
Are we evolving in the wrong direction?
Human evolution historically occurred within the conditions created by nature.
Our sensory systems, emotional mechanisms and attention evolved in environments where novelty existed, but not at the speed, volume and intensity of today’s digital environment.
Now we have created a completely new environment for the brain.
We have placed a powerful stimulation machine inside our pockets.
It never sleeps.
It never becomes tired.
It continuously studies our behaviour.
It learns what attracts our attention.
And it continuously offers us another stimulus.
This is not biological evolution in the traditional sense. But it may represent a kind of cultural and behavioural evolution, in which technology is changing the environment to which our brains must adapt.
The question is whether we are adapting faster than our biology can comfortably accommodate.
Dr. Sonkar believes this issue deserves serious scientific attention, because humanity has created a sensory environment unlike anything in its evolutionary history.
Perhaps the real danger is not distraction
We often say that social media is making us distracted.
That may be only the surface problem.
The deeper possibility is loss of sensitivity to subtlety.
If the brain repeatedly receives intense stimulation, perhaps a quiet experience begins to feel empty.
If every story is dramatic, an ordinary life may begin to feel boring.
If every disagreement is presented as a battle, cooperation may appear uninteresting.
If every piece of information is competing for attention, contemplation becomes difficult.
And if happiness itself becomes associated with continuous stimulation, peace may be mistaken for boredom.
That would be a profound cultural loss.
We need a new definition of progress
Technology is one of humanity’s greatest achievements.
The problem is not technology itself.
The problem begins when technology starts determining the emotional environment in which the human mind lives.
A successful technology should not merely maximize consumption.
It should also respect the biology of the human being.
Perhaps we need to ask a different question:
Does this technology make us more alive, or merely more stimulated?
These are not the same thing.
Stimulation is not happiness.
Excitement is not meaning.
Attention is not understanding.
Virality is not importance.
And engagement is not compassion.
Dr. Sonkar’s broader argument is that technological progress should ultimately be measured not only by how much attention it can capture, but by whether it helps preserve the qualities that make human life meaningful.
We must protect the quiet mind
Perhaps the next frontier of human development is not creating more powerful stimulation.
Perhaps it is learning how to remain sensitive in a world that is constantly trying to stimulate us.
We may need to deliberately create spaces for silence, nature, reading, scientific thinking, genuine conversation, compassion and unhurried observation.
Because the human brain should not have to live permanently at maximum emotional volume.
A beautiful sunset should still be capable of stopping us.
A kind word should still matter.
A peaceful morning should still feel satisfying.
Another person’s suffering should still disturb us.
And silence should not feel empty.
The greatest danger of an overstimulated civilization may not be that we feel too much. It may be that we eventually need too much to feel anything at all.
Perhaps our challenge is therefore not to disconnect from technology, but to ensure that technology does not disconnect us from the subtle emotional world that makes us human.