How To Turn Off Autoplay On Social Media — And Save Yourself From Seeing Graphic Content

Our always-online digital society comes with lots of perks ― and a few undeniably horrific downsides.

The latter was on show Wednesday when movies of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk shortly flooded social media. Many individuals logged on to their apps and instantly have been met with grotesque accounts of the incident due to many apps’ autoplay operate, the place movies begin enjoying with out a person’s lively involvement.

Analysis reveals that viewing violent content material on social media could cause individuals to expertise signs just like post-traumatic stress dysfunction. A 2015 examine revealed within the British Psychological Society discovered that 22% of examine members “scored excessive on medical measures of PTSD though none had earlier trauma, weren’t current on the traumatic occasions and had solely watched them by way of social media,” according to the researchers.

In the event you don’t need your feeds to routinely play movies, there are methods to disable this operate. (And it may be protecting on your psychological well being.) Beneath are directions on how one can flip off autoplay on numerous social media apps:

In line with the platform, disabling this operate will apply to any video that seems in your feed, in addition to GIFs.