Source :NEWS18 NEWS
Last Updated:May 13, 2025, 08:57 IST
War may not be at their doorstep, but for an entire generation raised in peacetime, its psychological shock has arrived uninvited, through screens, headlines, and silence.
Indian armed forces carried out precision strikes on nine terror targets in Pakistan and PoK under Operation Sindoor. (Image: News18/File)
Over the past week, the airwaves and timelines have been thick with talk of war — not in history books or distant archives, but in real-time, 24×7 updates. Missiles, borders, strategy, retaliation: vocabulary once confined to geopolitics classes now bleeds into Instagram stories, YouTube breakdowns, and dinner table conversations. For adults, this may feel like déjà vu. But for an entire generation born after 2000 — many still in their teens or early twenties — this is the first visceral exposure to the possibility of large-scale conflict. And it’s leaving an invisible imprint.
The last war on Indian soil that played out in real public memory was Kargil in 1999. Today’s teenagers were not even born then. For them, the idea of war has largely existed in curated forms — as plotlines in web series or as sanitized chapters in textbooks. The immediacy and emotional weight of national conflict — especially when experienced through a digital deluge — is unprecedented for this demographic. And like all firsts, this too is being absorbed deeply, and often silently.
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“The constant exposure to fear-inducing content activates a chronic stress response, especially in children and adolescents whose coping mechanisms are still developing,” says Dr. Rachna Sinha, a Mumbai-based child and adolescent therapist. “Unlike older generations who grew up with a more analog relationship with the news, this generation is absorbing everything — visuals, reactions, conspiracies — all at once, without filters.”
For a teenager scrolling endlessly, the blurred line between content and reality means the war isn’t just happening somewhere else — it feels like it’s happening to them. The algorithm doesn’t differentiate between an air raid and a meme. Each notification is a potential new threat. Each doomscroll is a rabbit hole of emotional overload.
This constant state of anticipatory anxiety — a term psychologists use to describe the stress of waiting for something bad to happen — is becoming alarmingly common. It’s not just about fear, but also confusion, guilt, and moral helplessness. Many feel they’re supposed to have an opinion, a stance, even though they barely understand the geopolitics of it. And those who don’t react or repost are often guilt-tripped by peers into taking sides.
“Young minds are at a vulnerable juncture where identity and empathy are still evolving,” explains Delhi-based psychotherapist Karan Mehta. “They might internalize the narrative of war through an emotional lens — it’s no longer just ‘news’, it becomes part of their lived experience, shaping their worldview and sense of security.”
This silent impact is showing up in unexpected ways: disrupted sleep, irritability, withdrawal from conversations, or hyperfixation on online updates. Some schools have reported dips in classroom focus, while counsellors are witnessing an uptick in sessions involving discussions around fear, dread, and confusion.
The psychological toll of war doesn’t require proximity to the battlefield. In an age where war is livestreamed, its emotional residue flows across borders — straight into bedrooms, onto phones, into fragile teenage psyches. And while we discuss military responses, territorial strategies, and political implications, we must also start talking about emotional reparations — especially for the young.
Because this generation, born in an era of globalisation, urban conveniences, and mostly peacetime, is now confronting something elemental: the instability of the world. The grown-up realisation that peace is not a given. And for some, that awareness may come with a quiet scar.
If the world is to teach its youth about conflict, it must also teach them how to process it — with empathy, context, and care. Because every war has a frontline. And every frontline leaves a legacy.
- First Published:
May 13, 2025, 08:58 IST
SOURCE : NEWS 18
