In 2020, social media played a significant role in mobilization and amplifying the EndSARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) protest, a youth-led movement against Nigeria’s SARS, a police department known for extortion, torture, and extrajudicial killings (Ekumaoko & Ezemenaka, 2024). During the peak of the protest, specifically on 20 October 2020, at a popular protest site, the Lekki Tollgate, Lagos, military forces allegedly shot at unarmed protesters (Obeagu & Gbaden, 2025). Social media played a crucial role in documenting the shooting incident (Udenze, 2025). Having participated and researched End SARS, investigating the mental health of the protesters (participants of this study) becomes critical for the author. While research (Aboh, 2024; Udenze, 2024, 2025; Uwalaka, 2024) has focused on how the protest was organized, its socio-political significance, and how social media was deployed, the challenge of mental health and emotional labor borne by protesters remains understudied. Consequently, this study addresses the twofold research question: How did protesters who participated in digital activism during the EndSARS protest experience and manage mental health challenges, and how did their experiences shape their online advocacy efforts and mental well-being?

This research emerges at a vital juncture, as the participants of this study, who protested both offline and through digital platforms, now navigate complex post-activism realities marked by burnout, hypervigilance, and in some cases, complete disengagement from activist media and content. In this article, I argue that the movement’s heavy reliance on digital tools enabled the documentation of the Lekki Tollgate shooting but also exposed participants to challenges of mental health, emotional labor, and burnout. Through interviews with 19 purposively selected protesters who participated in the EndSARS protest, the analysis of data identified three themes which describe how engaging in activism on digital and social media platforms contributes to the mental health challenges faced by the participants. These themes are: (a) Emotional exhaustion and trauma exposure, (b) Online harassment and fear of repression, (c) Burnout and disengagement. By centring protesters’ mental health as a scholarly concern, this work challenges romanticized notions of digital activism that obscure its health toll. The EndSARS experiences offer crucial insights in this contemporary age, where digital resistance is becoming increasingly popular yet also hazardous and unsafe.

Digital activism, the use of digital platforms for social and political advocacy, has transformed how people and organizations engage in activism and social justice causes. While digital tools enable mobilization and global reach, they also impose significant emotional labor on participants. Emotional labor, a concept originating from Arlie Hochschild’s (1983) work on service workers, refers to the effort required to manage and express emotions according to social expectations. In digital activism, this labor includes moderating online spaces, coping with harassment, sustaining motivation, and performing affective solidarity (Campos & da Silva, 2024; Luther, 2025). Digital activism often requires sustained engagement with distressing content, including police violence, hate speech, and systemic oppression. Activists and protesters must navigate the emotional challenge of constant exposure to trauma while maintaining an outward stance of resilience (Tufekci, 2017). For example, during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the EndSARS movements, activists and protesters circulated videos of police brutality, forcing them to repeatedly witness and process violence (Freelon et al., 2016; Bakare, 2024), which may result in emotional trauma (Allen & Augustin, 2021). This trauma is a form of emotional labor that can lead to burnout, anxiety, and secondary traumatic stress (Snow et al., 2024; Rodriguez, 2022). Additionally, social media amplify hostility through trolling, doxxing, and coordinated harassment campaigns. Women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people of color disproportionately bear this burden (Jane, 2017). A study by Amnesty International (2018) found that women of color in politics and activism experience higher rates of online abuse, requiring them to expend emotional energy on self-protection while continuing advocacy work.

Emotional labor in digital activism is unevenly distributed, reflecting broader societal inequities. Feminist scholars argue that women and marginalized groups are often expected to perform affective labor, emotional work that sustains movements, while receiving little recognition (Banet-Weiser, 2025). For example, in #MeToo, women shared personal trauma narratives, which required vulnerability and emotional risk, while simultaneously supporting others in the movement (Mendes et al., 2019). Similarly, Black activists are frequently called upon to educate others about racism, a taxing process known as racial emotional labor (Gorski, 2019; Tanksley & Hunter, 2024; Chen et al., 2024). This expectation places an additional burden on marginalized activists, who must manage their own emotions while addressing the ignorance or defensiveness of privileged audiences (Sobande, 2020). The commodification of activism on social media further complicates this dynamic, as personal pain is often repackaged as shareable content (Dean, 2019).

Despite these challenges, digital protesters and activists develop strategies to mitigate emotional exhaustion. Some employ networked care (Vachhani, 2024), where mutual aid and emotional support are distributed across online communities. For instance, feminist activists use private messaging groups to debrief after public campaigns (Mendes et al., 2019). As it has been argued, social media plays a crucial role in mitigating health challenges (Thaker & Ganchoudhuri, 2023). Others practice digital detoxing, temporarily disengaging from platforms to preserve mental health (Syvertsen & Enli, 2020). Further, organizational structures also play a role in alleviating emotional labor. For instance, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) incorporated mental health resources into its digital organizing, recognizing the need for collective healing (Norris, 2023). Similarly, some activist groups rotate moderators to distribute the burden of content moderation (Jackson, 2023). Overall, digital activism’s emotional labor is an understudied yet critical aspect of contemporary social movements. While digital tools expand activist reach, they also introduce psychological strains that are often gendered and racialized. Recognizing and addressing these burdens is essential for sustaining long-term activism. This current study expands this area of research in the context of the EndSARS protest in Nigeria. In the next section, I examine the causes of mental health challenges in activism and how digital spaces exacerbate these challenges.

While social media significantly improved people’s mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic (Udenze & Uzochukwu, 2021), Activism, whether conducted offline or through digital platforms, imposes significant emotional and psychological stressors on participants. While digital tools have expanded the reach and efficiency of social movements, they have also contributed to shaping health issues (Adikpo, 2024; Yang, 2024), including the mental health burdens faced by activists (Snow et al., 2024). Mental health fatigue, a state of emotional exhaustion, burnout, and diminished capacity resulting from prolonged engagement in activism, has emerged as a pressing concern in contemporary advocacy (Williams, 2022). Mental health fatigue manifests in several ways in activism. Emotional exhaustion arises from sustained exposure to trauma and systemic injustice, leaving activists feeling drained and overwhelmed (Conner et al., 2023). Compassion fatigue, a form of desensitization, occurs when activists repeatedly encounter suffering, leading to emotional numbness (Boeckenhoff, 2021). Additionally, activist burnout, marked by decreased motivation and a sense of inefficacy, develops when individuals engage in prolonged activism without adequate rest or support (Snow et al., 2024). Unlike general burnout, activist fatigue is often compounded by moral injury, a form of psychological distress that stems from witnessing or being unable to prevent systemic harm (Levy & Gross, 2024; Rudow, 2016). Digital activism exacerbates these issues due to the perpetual nature of online engagement or what Miller et al. (2021) theorise as the perpetual opportunism of the smartphone. As Marshall (2024) reveals, greater engagement with Black Lives Matter-related social media posts in the United States was related to more severe mental health symptoms. Besides, digital activists or protesters sometimes encounter online harassment and bullying (Desborough, 2018).

There are various causes of mental health challenges in digital activism. Activists frequently engage with distressing material, including graphic depictions of violence, hate speech, and survivor testimonies. In digital spaces, this exposure is unrelenting. The widespread circulation of violent imagery, such as videos documenting police brutality, forces activists to repeatedly process trauma (Freelon et al., 2016). Furthermore, supporting survivors in movements like #MeToo often leads to secondary traumatic stress, as activists absorb the emotional pain of others (Mendes et al., 2019). Also, digital activists and online protesters, particularly those from marginalized communities, face coordinated harassment campaigns. Women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people of color are disproportionately targeted with doxxing and trolling (Schmitz et al., 2022; Meisner, 2023). This racialized and gendered abuse imposes additional emotional labor, compounding stress and anxiety (Gorski, 2019). For instance, Black women activists experience disproportionately high levels of online vitriol, often leading to withdrawal from digital advocacy spaces (Tanksley, 2024; Tanksley & Hunter, 2024). Further, social media incentivizes performative solidarity, pressuring activists to maintain constant visibility. This dynamic forces individuals to post frequently to remain relevant, educate others on systemic issues (a form of unpaid racial emotional labor), and manage audience expectations while balancing personal vulnerability (Thimsen, 2022). This affective labor, the emotional work required to sustain movements, often goes unrecognized, deepening fatigue and contributing to burnout (Snow et al., 2024). Related to this last factor is the algorithmic nature of social media, which rewards constant engagement, pressuring activists to remain perpetually online (Lim, 2023). Additionally, the rapid news cycle, where attention shifts abruptly from one crisis to another, creates activist whiplash, leaving individuals emotionally drained (Poell et al., 2023). Evidently, the blurring of boundaries between personal and activist lifestyles makes it difficult for people to disengage from such practices and digital platforms (Howard, 2022). Considering the above studies, and notwithstanding, the growing scholarship (Udenze, 2025; Aboh, 2024) on the EndSARS protest. For instance, Uwalaka’s (2024) exploration of social media as a conduit for solidarity during the movement’s anniversary, and Udenze’s (2024) examination of socio-economic intersections and hydra-headedness of the protest, this study expands the literature by focusing on the understudied angle of protest-specifically, how the EndSARS digital activism practice contributes to mental health challenges.

This qualitative research builds on my three-year initial ethnographic study of the EndSARS movement through the framework of collective memory. Upon completing the aforementioned project, I maintained contact with my participants. I followed up with the eleven participants I had studied, inquiring about their lives after the momentum of the protest had subsided. Maintaining friendship and keeping in touch with my participants extends the discourse on friendnography (Smith-Christmas, 2019), which has become an integral part of qualitative research, particularly ethnographic studies (Owton & Allen-Collinson, 2013). In the digital age, this friendship has been amplified by the use of digital and social media for research, for instance, digital ethnography. Damin (2024) describes this form of friendship as digital friendnography. While keeping in touch with my participants, I realised, surprisingly, that a good number of them elaborated on digital mental health in relation to the protest and other related challenges. Consequently, I decided to further investigate the protest from the perspective of digital activism and mental health.

My positionality as a researcher and a friend created a dynamic interplay of access, empathy, and responsibility. While these relationships facilitated deeper insights, particularly as participants disclosed unprompted reflections on digital mental health challenges linked to the protest experience. I remained aware that my closeness to participants could influence the data and its interpretation, potentially introducing data bias. By critically engaging with these power dynamics and maintaining transparency in how I gathered and analysed data, I sought to preserve the integrity of the research while recognising that knowledge production in such contexts is inherently situated, relational, and ethically complex.

Through the eleven participants in my previous study, I was able to snowball (Mohammadi & Zimmermann, 2025) and purposively (Nyimbili & Nyimbili, 2024) recruit an additional eight people who are committed EndSARS advocates. Like the initial eleven participants, these eight people also participated in physical protests in Nigeria during the peak of the movement in 2020, as well as on social media. Consequently, the participants possess the knowledge and information power (Malterud et al., 2016) that engendered rich qualitative data for this research. Furthermore, all nineteen participants in the current study are young people between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four years. The ages of the participants align with Nigeria’s National Youth Policy, which defines youth as individuals between eighteen and thirty-five years old (Udenze, 2024).

The semi-structured interview method was adopted to collect primary data from the 19 participants. The information power (Malterud et al., 2016) of the participants and the researcher’s interviewing skills (Gandy, 2024) are essential in achieving rich qualitative data. In the case of this research, these elements enabled me to generate rich and useful data. The interviews were primarily centered on digital and mental health experience with respect to the post-EndSARS protest on social media. Due to the paucity of funds for travelling to Nigeria, I conducted the entire interview online. Nine of the interviews were conducted via Zoom. I conducted five interviews on WhatsApp calls, and the remaining five interviews were done on Google Meet. For approximately two decades, the online interview technique has been a crucial approach for collecting data (O’Connor & Madge, 2017). Despite the limitations of the online interview approach (Maia, 2023), the use of online synchronous interviews in this study, which facilitates visual and textual interaction between the participants and me, is an added advantage. Similar to the in-person interviews, this approach allowed me to see and converse in real time with my interlocutors, which also enabled me to document verbal and non-verbal cues and ensure greater spontaneity in responses. Further, my use of the online interview techniques contributes to the discussion on what and where is understood as the field and tools (Hine, 2015; Pink et al., 2026) and the very notion of fieldwork in online digital research.

It is pertinent to note that the participants chose the different online interviewing platforms at their convenience. Through negotiation, me and each participant decided the timeslot that suits us. However, in most of the interviews, I had to give in to the time suggested by the participants. The participants’ informed consents were sought, and they voluntarily agreed to participate in this research. Furthermore, all participants gave their consent to be recorded during the interviews. On average, the interviews lasted forty-five minutes, with the longest lasting an hour and eleven minutes. It is essential to note that, due to the significant knowledge the participants possess about the EndSARS movement, the depth of the interviews (Small & Calarco, 2022) was rich; consequently, the data were qualitatively thick. Although Guest et al. (2006) assert that qualitative interviewing reaches saturation with around 12 interviews. However, Lareau and Rao (2016) argue that the depth of the data is essential in qualitative interviews. Malterud et al. (2016) call Lareau and Rao’s argument the information power of the interviewee, which my participants possess. I transcribed the interviews using Express Scribe, an audio-text software, and the analysis was conducted thematically, following an iterative process similar to Braun and Clarke’s (2024) thematic analysis (TA). First, I read through the interviews to familiarise myself with the data. Next, from the soft copy of the transcript in Microsoft Word, I began identifying patterns of responses among the participants. I identified these patterns by highlighting the needed excerpts in different colours. Wherever unclear and I do not understand, I go back to reread the transcript to fully comprehend it. Afterwards, I started assigning code names to the identified patterns. During this back-and-forth process, I review the nonverbal cues in the interviews and notes I made in my journal to gain a deeper understanding of the analysis. Next, I start merging the codes to form themes. I categorise the initial themes I constructed as non-permanent themes. Two examples of themes from the initial five non-permanent themes I constructed are “psychological fear and burnout” and “emotional drain”. At this juncture, I review the themes in relation to the patterns and codes to ensure that they address the research question. Satisfied with the review of the non-permanent themes, I arrived at three permanent themes. Consequently, I proceed to name the three permanent themes: (a) Emotional exhaustion and trauma exposure, (b) Online harassment and fear of repression (c) Burnouts and disengagement. With the permanent themes in place, I proceed to the phase of writing the analysis report. In writing the report, I draw on excerpts from the dataset. For ethical and privacy reasons, the participants’ names are pseudonymized.

It is pertinent to mention that this study seeks to provide rich and contextualized understandings that others can evaluate for relevance in different settings. With 19 in-depth interviews, this study provides detailed insights into the individual and collective experiences within a clearly defined socio-political movement. The depth and diversity of these accounts support what Smith (2018) terms transferable generalizability, where readers can relate findings to similar contexts or experiences. By offering thick descriptions and allowing participants’ voices to shape the interpretation, this study enables others, be they scholars, policymakers, or activists, to assess the applicability of these findings within broader struggles for youth-led civic engagement, state accountability, and resistance movements beyond Nigeria.

Now, through these themes: (a) Emotional exhaustion and trauma exposure, (b) Online harassment and fear of repression (c) Burnouts and disengagement, I discuss the results generated from the primary data.

This study has attempted to explore how the EndSARS movement reveals the paradox of digital activism: while it democratizes participation, mobilization and documentation, it also democratizes trauma exposure. Mental health challenges are an occupational hazard of contemporary activism, exacerbated by the demands of digital engagement. While digital technology has revolutionized mobilization, it has also introduced new psychological risks, including trauma, harassment, and performative pressures. The testimonies of the participants in this research serve as both a warning and a roadmap, highlighting an urgent need to address the invisible casualties of digital resistance and the mental and emotional well-being of those who engage in activism on screens as well as on the streets. The participants ‘ experiences put this question in our minds: When the smartphone turns off and the social media algorithms move on, who bears responsibility for healing those left traumatized by the frontlines of digital dissent? Consequently, the challenge for future movements in Nigeria would be to develop resistance strategies that account for these psychological dimensions of digital authoritarianism, creating sustainable models of activism that take the mental health of protesters seriously, especially post-protest. Traditional models of self-care may prove inadequate against the pervasive, boundaryless nature of digital trauma. Instead, collective approaches that acknowledge the unique stressors of digital witnessing would do. Institutionalized mental health support, ethical guidelines for traumatic content sharing, and sustainable participation frameworks should be developed by platforms to preserve the mental health of protesters. Further, the theoretical contribution of this study lies in its extension of theories of emotional labour and digital activism by foregrounding the psychological costs of participation in digital resistance, particularly within the context of the Global South. By suggesting that digital activism fosters broader participatory mobilization while also intensifying health challenges, the study challenges dominant narratives that often celebrate digital engagement without considering its emotional and mental health implications. It advances the concept of emotional labour in activism by situating it within the digital sphere, where activists must navigate constant exposure to violence, harassment, and performative pressures. From a Global South perspective, the study emphasizes the need for context-specific frameworks that address the mental health risks faced by protesters and activists. Consequently, it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of digital resistance, which is both empowering and emotionally hazardous. Notwithstanding the contribution of this study, it is essential that future studies also attempt to use a quantitative or triangulation approach, and employ broader sampling across geographic, gender, and class lines, to understand how activists and protesters grapple with the challenge of mental health, and to further the transferability of this study’s findings. Future studies could also explore policy-based solutions to safeguard the well-being of protesters in an increasingly digital movement landscape.