By Wendy Sanacore
I was catching up on my email and the news of the world this morning, and I happened across a story with the headline: “Leopard Kills Man, Scalps Another.” Of course, I clicked on it to read it. There’s not a lot that surprises me that I find online, any and all information you should ever want is out there with the right amount of searching, but what came up when I clicked on this article really did surprise and revolt me…(I didn’t post the article here, but I am sure if you wanted to, you could find it.)
A photographer on the scene had captured the attack and there were three photos, the second showing a flap of the man’s head being torn off and the third showing the man walking away from the attack covered in blood, the side of his face ripped off.
If we were to watch a movie with those images, the movie would be rated “R”. But it’s not a movie, it’s the Internet…and it’s real life. And it’s scarily accessible. How much of what we see on both television and the Internet is desensitizing us to reality?
I remember a while ago I watched real time footage on the news of someone being shot. And when it was all over and the story was complete, I had to remind myself that the incident I had just witnessed was not a movie. It was a real person, gunned down and killed. It almost didn’t ring to me because of all we see in the movies.
So what, if anything, is there that we can do about the content online? How outrageous do we allow stories and posts to get and do we truly have any control over it whatsoever?
What are your thoughts?