Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash — Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

Aren’t we supposed to be an intelligent and evolved species? When I read on the news that a spike of domestic violence and child abuse is happening due to the lockdown, it is to wonder how humans are using this extra brain layer of their that supposed to make them smarter than other animals.

Key numbers

The United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), the UN’s reproductive and sexual health agency (UNRSH), predicted that six months of lockdown measures could lead to 31 million more cases of domestic abuse globally
In Britain, London’s Metropolitan Police said it had carried out over 4,000 domestic abuse arrests in the first six weeks of the country’s lockdown.

The reality of domestic violence

Indeed, the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic put all of us under tremendous amounts of stress. But it is no excuse for such reckless behavior. We, as humans, should be able to act as responsible and intelligent people.
Dream on one would say. A perfect world where everyone does what they are supposed to do to create a safe and loving environment does not exist and probably won’t ever exist. But there is still hope in trying.

CBS News — Surge in domestic violence during the lockdown in the UK. From CBS News on YouTube

We need to understand how it works to reverse the trend. The question is, what does trigger such unforgivable behaviors?

I’m bored…

The first piece of answer that comes to mind is one inability to occupy itself. We are easily bored. During the lockdown, free time expanded considerably, and one needs to stay busy to not lose its mind. A lack of creativity will not go a long way.

The Necessity to Stay Busy

We are in a quest for occupations or activities. Like Anna Gosline described in the nicely written article published in American Scientific, bored people exhibit higher risk-taking behaviors. Lucky for us, we live in a technological era. The internet is our friend and we don’t have to dig too deep to find interesting activities.

So many contents are available — Youtube videos, Instagram, and Facebook stories, not to mention Pinterest, a gold mine of DIY craft ideas, and more. Our next activity is just one click away. Of course, this click is easily accessible to privileged individuals. Indeed, some are not as fortunate and for them, access to the internet is still a luxury.

Problem solved, one would say. I just have to take my phone and start a search. It will make my day go fast and I can repeat the process every day. Well, yes for the activity side of it. You will certainly find something to occupy your mind.

However, not all activities are appropriate to fill the day. It is nice to have choices of course. But You have to make the right choices. A quality choice should I say. For almost every topic, the decisions to choose quality over quantity are usually the way to go — online contents are good examples.

The Dark Side of Virtual Reality

The internet is not all safe. Without talking about the dark web, lots of online content are calling for violence, brutality, and stupid acts. Those are polluting the web. Such materials are messing with our brains and are silently pushing us to do regrettable things. It slowly lifts the barriers of morals and ethics, in the thoughts and in the acts. The limit between virtual and real-life is ruptured.

The brain does not measure the consequences of our acts in real-life the same way anymore. It minimizes the effect of brutality or aggressivity since, in virtual reality, you always get away with no harm.

In real life, things are different. Acts have consequences. Acting in real life involves responsibilities. If we act in real life the same way we do in virtual life, we would be breaking hundreds of laws that were, initially, created to prevent such acts. We would be living in complete anarchy — a self-destructive lifestyle.

Photo by Vlad Gorshkov on Unsplash — Photo by Vlad Gorshkov on Unsplash

You now understand that quality content is key to keep a mind healthy. Being exposed, daily, to violent content could slowly and silently shift your behavior toward violence as well.

Stress from boredom and violent content, which, by the way, could be related to each other, happen to be aggravating factors for domestic violence. It does mean that something else is necessary to trigger such harmful behaviors — probably an underlying psychological condition of the perpetrators.

Psychologic Profile

An extra piece of the puzzle to understand the trigger of domestic violence lies in the psychopathological profile of the perpetrators — emphasized by stress. Based on the literature, perpetrators of domestic violence exhibit antecedent of personality disorders. Four relevant types of personality are popping out:

The borderline type: general unstableness, affectivity issues, and impulsiveness.
The narcissistic type: grandiosity, seeking admiration, no empathy.
The antisocial type: contempt and violation of people’s rights.
The paranoid type: distrustful, react with anger, and aggressiveness.

Being lockdown with people that shows these traits of character, it is likely to end up in bad situations. When you found yourself in constant proximity with someone exhibiting a trait of a character mentioned above, it forces interactions and thus, augments the risk of tensions between the two. The stress provoked by lockdown is exacerbating psychopathological behaviors. Interestingly, abusers often suffer from depression and anxiety.

Besides the potential causes, we described above, increasing alcohol consumption has also been linked to domestic violence. During the lockdown, people started drinking more than they usually did. New alcohol-driven behaviors are emerging and violence is amongst them. This is subject to an article by itself. Stay tuned!

Alert! Domestic Violence On The Rise