Are We Becoming Spontaneous Photojournalists?
By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini
Q: Dear April Masini,
Cell phone media is everywhere. I send picture messages on my phone to my friends constantly. Even my 65-year-old father and I message videos and pictures through our cell phones. I've noticed many news channels using cell phone footage when talking about major events. Have cell phones allowed us to all be potential eye-witnesses with a camera?
Sincerely,
Mobile Movies
A:
Dear Mobile Movies,
Technology brings us all closer together, and cell phone images that are re-broadcast so that we can all see or hear what happened in a tragedy, are going to bring us closer to the tragedy. Will this desensitize us, or make us more sensitive?
As more people capture these images and share them with large groups -- as is happening and is going to happen exponentially -- we may find ourselves bombarded with images of unpleasantness. If these crimes are not punished and the chaos is not curbed there will be more images of violence and tragedy, and less of joy and creative expression.
The spontaneous photojournalism that is becoming part of our language is just a step in expressing what is happening around the world. What our justice system and our world leaders do to curb violence and protect citizens of the country and the world from the violence will determine whether or not we click off shootings because they have become mundane, or we watch in horror at injustice and tragedy.
Another point to be made is that history is no longer limited to people who can afford a news camera, a news crew or have a news management job. Cell phone technology has democratized history to the extent that anyone at any time can record images of anything and rebroadcast those images to pretty much any where. Mind boggling? It used to be. But now, it's just another day, and what happens in your backyard could make you the next historian.
April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas,
and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.
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