They bring us up short. The most literal adjective that could applied to them is arresting. We are seized by them. (I am aware that there are people who pass them over, but about them I have nothing to say.) As we look at them, the moment of the other's suffering engulfs us. We are filled with either despair or indignation. Despair takes on some of the other's suffering to no purpose. Indignation demands action. We try to emerge from the moment of the photograph back into our lives. As we do so, the contrast is such that the resumption of our lives appears to be a hopelessly inadequate response to what we have just seen.
John Berger describing social media.