What is it about?
This study followed 389 Israeli adults for six weeks during the 2025 hostage deal in Israel. We examined how exposure to war-related traditional and social media was linked to PTSD symptoms. Greater media exposure was associated with more PTSD symptoms, but what mattered especially was how people experienced the media: perceiving it as stressful was strongly linked to greater distress.
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Photo by Ian Betley on Unsplash
Why is it important?
During prolonged crises, media can bring traumatic events into people’s daily lives even when they are not directly exposed to them. Our findings show that the emotional experience of media may matter more than the type of media people use. They also reveal a vicious cycle: stressful media experiences can predict later PTSD symptoms, while PTSD symptoms can make subsequent media exposure feel more stressful.
Perspectives
This study is especially meaningful to us because it shows how major historical events can enter our lives through media and become psychologically immediate. Conducted during the 2025 hostage deal, it captured distress as events were still unfolding, including the deeply painful return of members of the Bibas family who did not return alive. For us, the article is both a scientific contribution to our understanding of mediated trauma and a small academic record of an extraordinary and devastating period in Israeli history.
Tali Gazit
Universitat Bar-Ilan
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: When war sneaks in through the window: Media exposure and trauma during ongoing crises., Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy, August 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/tra0002248.
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