Images of the dozens of Iraqi civilians killed and injured by a suicide bombing in Baghdad haunt living rooms in the U.S. But these nightmarish pictures are just a drop in the sea of tragedy that can be found on a television set almost any day. Some depict horror on an inconceivable scale, such as the earthquake that destroyed the ancient Iranian city of Bam, leaving an estimated 41,000 dead. Faced with these images, most of us either become overwhelmed with sadness or go numb, failing to muster up any emotion at all.

When we see visual depictions of suffering or carnage, the brain activity shifts away from the language-based, rational left side to the right side, which dominates in emotional processing and in the decoding of visual imagery. That is why watching can pack a more powerful emotional impact than reading. When it all becomes too much, our brains react by becoming desensitized, leaving us numb to the barrage of violence.

While traumatic events seem to come at us uncontrollably, we do have the power to turn off the TV, shielding ourselves from both trauma and desensitization—and ironically, that may help us tackle the problems within our control, says Restak: “When we are not ‘burned out’ or desensitized by media-derived emotions, we can reach out to others.”