Social Media

As I was driving to work this morning I was listening to one of our local radio stations and they were talking about the shooting yesterday of  reporter, Alison Parker, and camera man, Adam Ward, in Moneta, Virginia. I am sure you have all heard about it, they were doing a live broadcast with WDBJ-TV when they were shot by an ex colleague. 

As we all know, whenever anything horrible like this happens it gets picked up by the all the news stations, the Associated Press, and so on. The DJ's were talking about how events like this get sensationalized and the video can be watched on Youtube, Facebook and the public is just bombarded by those images. The male DJ was saying how it came up on his news feed and the option was not given to him whether he wanted to see it or not. I have noticed on my Facebook feed when I see something that I don't want to see I can hit the little drop down tab in the top right and click on I don't want to see this. There is also a I want to report this option. The thing is that I actually see the offensive post first and then I can opt out which defeats the whole purpose of the opt out button in my opinion. 

What role does society play in this? We are so voyeuristic it seems. Why do we have to know every single detail about something that happened? I felt this when 9/11 happened. There was non stop news coverage. Of course there should have been because it had an impact on all Americans but there were actual pictures of people leaping to their death. Should some images and video be censored? 

I know my stories to my children and great grand children won't be like my Father's. He will say "When I was a kid, I had to walk five miles to school with patches on my knees and I was happy to have clothes on my back and two good legs to walk with" or "I remember when gas was 40 cents a gallon and we could buy a bag of candy for one cent". I will say "I remember when I used to play outside and used my imagination because we didn't have the technology you kids have now a days". By the time I am in my sixties there is no telling what leaps and bounds social media will have made. 

What do you think? What is your take on how our world is changing?