I’ve been thinking about this more than I’d like to admit.
Not in a dramatic, “the world is doomed” way, just in small, quiet moments.
Like when someone shares something vulnerable, and the response is a dry “same.”
Or when bad news feels… distant. Seen, processed, and cleared in under ten seconds.
And I can’t tell whether we care less or if we’ve just learned to feel less.
We are constantly exposed to everything.
Someone’s heartbreak. Someone’s success. A crisis is happening miles away. Another one, even farther.
All at once. All the time.
At some point, it stops feeling real.
Not because it isn’t, but because it’s too much to hold.
So we react in the only way we can: we reduce it.
To a like. A comment. A repost. A “this is so sad.”
Then we scroll, because there’s always something else waiting.
I don’t think this makes us bad people.
I think it makes us tired.
There’s also a kind of quiet emotional numbing. Maybe even desensitisation.
We hear about wars across the world.
Cities destroyed. Children bombed.
For a moment, it hits us. Heavy. Unfair. Disturbing.
But almost immediately, another thought follows:
“There’s nothing I can do about it.”
And that’s where it ends.
We don’t sit with it for long. We don’t let it fully register.
Because if we did, it might be unbearable.
So we move on.
Not because we don’t care, but because caring about everything, all the time, would break us.
It’s unsettling how quickly something so serious becomes just another piece of information.
But then some moments stay.
Like how easy it’s become to joke about things that used to feel heavy.
How quickly we label people without trying to understand them.
How “not my problem” has quietly turned into a personality trait.
Sometimes it feels like empathy is being replaced with efficiency.
It’s faster to judge than to understand.
Easier to move on than to sit with someone’s discomfort.
And maybe we’ve started choosing easy without even realising it.
At the same time, that’s not the whole story.
Because I’ve also seen people show up in ways that are deeply human.
I remember one day when I felt completely lost, like I didn’t know how to reach my destination.
My friend, Aamya, just walked with me. For kilometers.
She didn’t try to fix anything. She didn’t give a big speech.
She just stayed.
At one point, I felt guilty that she had to bear with me. She replied:
“I would rather walk with you than let you walk through this all alone.”
I don’t think she realises how much that stayed with me.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t something the world would notice.
But it was empathy in its simplest, purest form.
So the empathy is there. It hasn’t disappeared.
It just feels… inconsistent.
Maybe what’s changed is not our ability to feel, but our capacity to keep feeling.
There’s only so much you can take in before you start protecting yourself.
And sometimes, that protection looks like indifference.
But indifference and numbness are not the same thing.
One is a choice. The other is a response.
And I think a lot of us are just overwhelmed.
Still, it makes me wonder:
When did it become normal to disengage so quickly?
When did caring start to feel like an effort?
When did we begin to mistake detachment for strength?
I don’t have a clear answer.
But I do think empathy today requires something it didn’t before — intention.
You have to choose to pause.
To listen a little longer.
To not turn everything into a joke or a takeaway.
To stay, even when it would be easier to move on.
If you’re reading this, don’t just agree and forget it two minutes later.
Try this, just once:
Listen without interrupting the next time someone talks about something that matters to them.
Sit with the next upsetting thing you see for a few extra seconds before scrolling.
When you feel yourself going numb, pause and ask yourself why.
Maybe we’re not becoming less empathetic.
Maybe we’re just getting better at avoiding it.
And maybe the real question isn’t what our generation is becoming,
But what we’re choosing to hold on to, despite everything.