As the end of the year quickly sneaks up on us, we are urged to reflect back on how the past twelve months unfolded. With a long-winded election that seemed to drag on forever, us Americans seemed to have undergone groundbreaking events. Moreover, technology has become the forefront of practically every field, from neuroscience to chemistry to music to even elementary tasks. Just walking on campus after the very first snowfall this past Saturday, I noticed that I have yet to encounter anyone with a shovel. People enduring the arduous task of clearing their driveways and sidewalks have been replaced with snowplows that rapidly clear the ground with ease. And with Apple’s recent release of the newest iPhone and the creation of the first device attached to a spinal cord that will allow a paralyzed patient to walk again, our technological advancement is well underway. With all this technology enabling us to make revolutionary breakthroughs and make daily tasks more bearable, it’s easy to get lost in our own little world. But have you ever taken the time out of your day to look up from your fancy tablet and think about all the people forced to abandon their hometown, look directly into the eyes of a dead parent, and call on a God that repeatedly lets them down?

Peace has always been a foreign word to the Middle East. The war on Syria has lasted over four and a half years. It’s difficult to put into words how long of a time that is, and for many, it’s easy to simply say “That sucks, I feel so bad.” Maybe you’ll give a video a like, or if you’re feeling frisky, a share. Then you’d go about your day scrolling through Twitter, making post-final exam party plans, and doing whatever you’ve been doing for your entire life.

Now, I could throw a bunch of random facts about the war at you. I could tell you that since the war started, 200,000 lives have been wrongfully taken. Or I could scold you for not knowing that over 4 million people have been forced to leave their homes, or that the death toll is increasing so fast that no one is able to keep track. But I’m not.

Instead of bombarding you with these facts that will impact you for no more than a few seconds and then slip your mind, I’m going to attempt to illustrate exactly just how extensively calamitous the war has been. In relative terms, let’s put it into a scenario: imagine that while you were getting ready for your eighth-grade semi-formal, a massive war on Syria was beginning to unravel. The first few air attacks have been made. Civilian unrest is beginning to increase. Rumors of a civil war have become the talk of the country. Nothing too serious yet.

Fast forward to your first day of Freshman year of high school. You’re anxious, enthusiastic and prepared to face the challenge of leaving middle school and entering the teen world. Meanwhile, a family in Syria is seeking refuge from the bombs that destroyed their home and took every belonging down with it. They’re left with nothing but a pile of rubble and dying faith.

Fast forward again. You’ve mastered Freshman year, and you’re now a sophomore. No more being lowly fresh meat: you’re now a whole year older than those lame new freshmen. You laugh at them with their large backpacks and begin to feel like you’ve got the hang of this whole high school thing. Nearly 7,000 miles away, a mother of four closes the eyelids of her children who have died under the debris of the explosion of a neighboring tank. Those starving bodies could not have possibly withstood the attacks. Across the street, your neighbor calls out to God. Her husband has died while walking to the market as the government released air attacks on insurgents.

Again, fast forward. You’re now a Junior. Your head is filled with college applications, kissing up to your Calculus teacher because he is your only hope for a letter of recommendation, and cramming SAT vocabulary words into your brain like there’s no tomorrow. At the same time, there literally is no tomorrow for the thousands of civilians who were kidnapped, detained, and tortured by the Syrian government.

Now you’re sitting in your last class on the last day of school in your senior year. You got into the school of your dreams without having to pay millions of dollars for tuition (hopefully). Although AP exams took forever, the dreaded days came and left in the blink of an eye. Prom was a blast. Graduation is next week, and you’re more than ready for a new chapter in your life. Four years seemed like four seconds. You look at your phone and encounter the infamous image of the boy who washed up on the shores of Turkey. The image was first released in press in early September, but has resurfaced after a children’s hospital was attacked. The image is bleak and makes your heart heavy, so you are inclined to click the like button. That’s the end of that thought.

Now it’s December. The first semester of your Freshman year of college has flown by. Your finals are nearly over, and you’re ecstatic that you get to return home to your family, your dog (who is also family) and actual food. You clicked on this link, and you’re wondering if this article will ever end. At this very moment, hundreds of thousands of children are taking their very last breath in the face of intense hunger, despair from losing their parents, and a fleeting belief that a higher power will look over them.

Now, I encourage you to look back at what’s trending on Facebook. I’ll give you a second.

On Thursday, December 15th, 2016, Kit Kat, Megan Fox, and Hugh Jackman (who?) were among the top of the trending list. The Syrian crisis was not even on the top ten list. On Friday, December 16th, Jane Austen was at the top of the list. Under that was a link entitled Make America Kittens Again, a link that changed every photo of Donald Trump with the face of a feline. Next were Hillary Duff and Jon Ryan. Aleppo made it to seventh place but was later replaced by Blue’s Clues and iPhone 6s. I’m checking back on Saturday, and see that currently, Aleppo is second on the Politics list, but not to be seen on the top ten of the general trending list.

Why is it that when a little over one hundred French citizens were killed by a suicide bombing back in 2015, Facebook created a profile picture option to support this, yet no such action has been taken by public media for the half million Syrian victims? Why don't we #prayforaleppo? Not to say France is any less important, but the entire world was seized by storm overnight after that attack, and no one is batting an eye at the forty times more deaths in Syria. Four and a half years later, from your semi-formal to the SAT to prom to graduation to your first college winter break, no decent coverage has been made on the most devastating crisis of the century, yet no one questions this.

I’ll conclude my rant by stating that it is easy to feel insignificant in this world. What good can one individual do for billions of others? Is it possible for us to even have an impact? Will one share on your Facebook feed viewed by your pool of 400 Facebook friends even make any difference? One of the main reasons the crisis has been dragged on for so unbearably long is the unacceptable lack of coverage on it. We must raise such questions to our media, which prompts its viewers to prioritize celebrity drama and reality television over real reality. Frankly, a share is not going to do anything but make your fellow followers and friends gloomy for a second. But remember: if you are lucky enough to carry around an iPhone, you are capable of making some difference. Use your nifty little piece of technology to better the world. Share some footage, but in the meantime, get informed on Syrian policies, donate, or join an organization. I, myself, admittedly don’t know too much about Syrian policies but am willing to do more research, and kindly embolden you to do the same. Do something to stop such a crime on humanity.