It’s no secret that something chaotic and terrifying is happening in Syria right now.

Many people on our side of the world didn’t have much of an idea about the war in Syria’s existence, or what it was even about, until the photo below circulated the world in emails, texts, retweets, Facebook shares, etc.

This photo shows a deceased Syrian refugee child, drowned and washed onto the shore of the town Bodrum in Turkey. It’s presumed that this child was one of eleven Syrians who drowned while attempting to flee Syria, a country full of war related catastrophe. This photo is being shared among people across all continents, and of all cultures, in hopes to bring a larger awareness to the war going on in Syria, and the desperation of refugees to find a safer place for themselves and their families to call home.

And you know what? It’s working.

I wasn’t all too aware myself of what the current situation was in Syria until I came across this photo, and the clear desperation and fine line between humanity and bureaucratic duty that displayed intrigued me, as I’m sure it intrigued many other people that also saw the photo. The bottom line is- the Internet is an incredibly powerful tool. The way we use it can impact people from all over the globe. If the struggles of the Syrian refugees weren’t brought to my attention by this photo, I probably wouldn’t have given the overseas situation too much thought. Photos bring a different type of attention to situations. Photos make you search for meaning, while words display meaning easily enough so everyone can understand.

There are photos shared of celebrities every day on social media, and of things that don’t require our attention, yet we give our attention to these things every day. It’s hard for us to live with the knowledge that innocent children are dying, innocent families are being broken up, and innocent citizens are fleeing over something that none one has any control over. It’s much easier for us to wrap our minds around small things that carry less of a weight on our heart, but it’s the big, emotional things that we owe our attention and words to, and we have so many vessels to accomplish this.

A plethora of social media websites and formats exist, and a plethora of socioeconomic issues exist as well. I’ve gotten criticism for speaking out on political issues on social media because of my age, so people assume that I lack knowledge of the situations I speak out on. The reality is, I would rather bring light to something worth talking about that I have little knowledge about than bring light to Kylie Jenner’s newest hair color, which is something I may be an expert on. People of generations past would kill to have a platform such as the Internet to speak out on, but it seems that we tend to use it for discussions of things that have little to no impact on our society, so I urge you to tweet the photo of the Syrian child instead of the photo of Kylie Jenner’s new hairstyle.