If someone decided to slit the throats of five civilians in the United States, there is no doubt that such a gruesome event would be broadcasted on the front page of national, maybe even global news the next day. If that “someone” happened to be a member of a terrorist organization, there would be an additional outpour of security tightening, concerned and (possibly rightfully so) paranoid citizens, and perhaps even a new onslaught of discrimination based on stereotypes. It isn’t just in the United States either–the media’s response to the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels have indicated that there is a worldwide awareness and fear of terrorism prevalent with the rise of prominent extremist organizations. But can we really call it an awareness? I knew within hours of the attacks in Europe what had happened, yet I just found out from sifting through Google searches that Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group, did slit the throats of five civilians in a village in Niger in July of 2015, according to Arab News, a daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia. A day later they raided a village in Nigeria and killed 11 more innocent civilians. The same day, militants from the same group also raided three other villages in Nigeria and murdered an additional 45 people, burning down the villages after, according to New Delhi Television. And that is just three of the hundreds of attacks that occurred in 2015. I could write myself off as just another ignorant soul for only now learning of these events, but either way it’s evident that global media coverage of these situations–especially in the western hemisphere–is skewed.

So from here we have to ask ourselves what makes an attack “important.” Is it the amount of people who are killed? Or is it the geographical location? One could make the argument that a lot of events don’t get picked up by global news sources simply because they occur in remote and widespread areas, but that’s not always the case. After some more intense Google-sifting, I was surprised to find that the New York Times had published an article in July 2015 covering the exact same Boko Haram events I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the issue, then, is not that these attacks are not being covered, but that the level of attention they receive greatly varies. Afghanistan, for example, is an epicenter for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, so routine news of violence in that area does not seem to phase those of us who live completely different lives on the other side of the globe. Many of us have no physical or emotional attachment to the locations affected by terrorism. It’s true that we might try to put ourselves in the shoes of people who live with that kind of evil occurring around them every day, but more often than that, I find my thoughts uncomfortably shifting away from that concrete possibility and broadly questioning what is wrong with humanity instead. Attacks such as 9/11, the underground bus bombing in London in 2005, and the recent bombings in Paris and London generate a worldwide ripple of fear because they are areas that seem separated from the terror in North Africa and the Middle East. And perhaps that’s why they are targeted. If there’s anything history has taught us, it’s that violence does not discriminate based on developed versus developing countries, nor does it care whose family it destroys.

So if Twitter or Facebook fails to notify you of the next act of violence that occurs, remember this–terrorism sucks, no matter where it is, how much media attention it gets, or who it affects. One individual’s grief or hardships cannot be compared to another’s. Some people encounter violence so often that it becomes a routine part of their life, yet others may only see it once in their lifetime. We don’t necessarily need the media’s news to remind us of that. What we can do is be aware that bad things happen every day, and through that awareness, go through our own days with a new respect for life and a greater empathy for others. You cannot control the world, but you can control how you respond to it.