**6.5 Cyber violence, dark web, and new emotional repertoire**

Susan Sonntag underlines the importance of a basic human trait, such as empathy, in her book *On Regarding the Pain of Others*. Exposing visual violence in a voyeuristic gaze causes us to lose the feelings of empathy for others [99]. Unfortunately, indifference and showing no empathy toward the victims are now the new realities of society. The aestheticizing of the violence can decrease the real emotional reaction can cause paralysis of emotion. Here Baudrillard defines excessive and improper uses of violent images that cause "implosion of meaning." It is a kind of aphasia. This feeling of insensitivity, which is the general loss of meaning experienced in the social sphere, is read by Baudrillard as a feature of mass society. While the concept of the mass in the Frankfurt School was considered as a passive entity in communication studies, Baudrillard transformed the mass into an entity that could not be influenced by any information and on which no information could create effect [100].

While the general loss of meaning in the social field drags the mass into a sense of numbness, the tragedy, chaos, or violence experienced in the social field disappears without the slightest effect on the individual. This seemingly numbing state allows the legitimation and spread of violence as an impulse on every individual who constitutes the social sphere. In the social sphere, the individual gradually becomes the dynamo of a mechanism that produces or legitimizes violence, while the normative sphere of the society recedes. Reading, interpreting, and using technical tools from a critical perspective without being fetishized in the digital society will protect individuals from the possible negative effects of these tools.

When the September 11, 2001 attacks happened in New York, the collapse of the buildings and their visuals shocked the whole world. People who watched the planes plunging into the towers witnessed the commencement of a new era. This new era showed the vulnerability of the security of systems. Here, as explained above by Baudrillard's terminology implosion of meaning, people who watched the shootings of collapsing and jumping people from the towers are appalled by the heaviness of the tragedy. They were emotionally paralyzed. Feeling acedia or aphasia are two similar traumatic outcomes when exposed to violent visuals. As we can see, continual exposure to a persisting stress source or income has created new types of patients who have PTSD. To put in other words, PTSD in the postmodern society is the outcome of the post-modern city life we all witnessed.

To make things worse, capitalism eliminates the possibility of building a healthy community to get rid of the troubles. The fact that postmodern urban life forms are generally shaped in the axis of the dynamics of the capitalist system. As a result, elements such as competition, individualism, and hedonism become more visible in the cultural field. In this spatial practice, where the social collectivity is replaced by the hedonistic tendencies of the consumption culture, interpersonal communication forms are gradually falling apart [101]. In addition to the aforementioned paralysis of emotions caused by postmodern cultural, social, and economic problems, the COVID-19 pandemic time has appeared as a chaotic example for the present situation. People have begun to struggle with so many things with many new unknown emotions and trauma types that emerged on social media platforms. These unknown terminologies now become a big part of our emotional repertoire. They are multifarious such as thumbnailing, trolling, body shaming, gaslighting, cancel culture or de-platforming, #metoo campaign, toxic masculinity, stress to feed on social media, hashtagging posts, feeling acedia, losing the spatial sense in virtual and augmented reality, being immersed in the metaverse, having been cringed on social media. The list can be endless when it comes to the new phobia types of which may not be classified under the DSM-5 criteria yet to be accepted as legitimate trauma types [102]. Digital habitus is considered as the underlying reason of the problem cause or triggers many new phobias, such as netless phobia, fear of missing out (FOMO), nomophobia, or the feeling of being stalked by unknown gazes due to synoptic surveillance. The dark side of the digital world as we can see here turn many ordinary people's life into hell. Cyber violence is reinforced by professional criminals who used random pictures of people in deep fake porno. It takes a second to be the victim of deep fake porno. Hence, so-called naïve nudity trend-sending naked pictures to your beloved can be a real trauma for many young people. Similarly, some rather new terminologies, such as crowdsourcing or hive mind activities, can serve just for big data and nobody can guess the real outcome of those digital practices.

It follows that toward a more peaceful and healthy society, we need people who are emotionally healthy as well as mature. For many PTSD patients, time freezes. The past events occasionally haunt them. A similar haunting process can be seen in the Virtual Reality universe. The artistic use of visuals and space in VR technologies can cause new trauma in which time has been expanded as if it is a "duree" experience [103]. Aestheticizing the violence in those arts can trigger fears and worsen the situation. So all these new encounters have brought a new level of violence types in the new media. As it has been presented, each new media and innovation comes with its drawbacks.

Reversing this more positively, media content and AI should collaborate. Psychiatrists, therefore, here must carefully read the signs of digital habitus problems to address the issue by implementing new technologies wisely. One must be aware of the fact that not every innovation has positive effects on society. Reading, interpreting, and using technical tools adopting a critical perspective and without fetishizing things in the digital society will protect individuals from the possible negative effects of these tools.

### **6.6 Counter activities to prevent society from cyber violence**

Prevention of PTSD should start by preventing and monitoring the activities of people on Digital Media. What we need is counter activities to stop the evil deeds and narrations all over the world. A narcissist can disguise himself/herself in social media groups with a hidden agenda camouflaging in amicable chats, can easily take advantage of PTSD people's vulnerability. They can easily hunt a new dependent person as his/her victim. A cyber sadist invites his/her victim in his digital tower-like Marquis de Sade captured and imprisoned his victims in his tower. Similarly, illegal groups can find their supporters from this digital bowl. Tracking the digital activities of potential criminals, sadists or schizophrenics can save many people's life. However, all these counter activities are hot topics and controversial as they are against the freedom of communication and privacy. These surveillance and counter-violence discussions are beyond the scope of this study. Pursuing digital technologies to find new ways to reach PTSD can be incomplete if people are not warned against the demonic uses of social media. As explained above, some narcissist people can find their victims via social media platforms. New media here not only digitalize the mindset of people but also offer new facets of crime, violence, and even terrorism. Now cybercrimes, digital violence, data mining, fake accounts, identity stealing, illicit money flows, the resonance of terrorists can cause new traumas in the cyber world. Counter activities to raise awareness of the malicious use of social media is surpassing the job description of social psychiatrists. To fight the root of the problems sometimes can minimize the number of people who would be traumatized in the cyber world. To create a peaceful society, one has a peaceful mindset that is free from restlessness, such as exaggerated startle responses, flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance. Genuine and meaningful communication to lead a meaningful life should not be taken for granted. To provide sensitivity, it is necessary to construct a collective language in the social field by professionals working in the field of communication science and experts in the field of psychology. They should work together to build a new language that prevents social polarization. In addition to the polarized ideologies, digital media have also problematic discourse and contents. Aggressive language in social media is contagious. People who are traumatized, victimized, killed, raped, exiled had not escaped the same pattern of violent discourse. The wild and violent human nature has necessitated certain psychological support systems to cure the victims of tragic events. It is assumed that no society is immune from traumas, and postmodern societies are no exception. Depression, unhappiness, and the symptoms of burnout are highly correlated with the traumatic issues within the scope of postmodern society [91].
