Stand back people... the world is evolving at an exponential pace, in more ways than one. While the Human species in physical form does not appear to change during our lifetime, technology and the effect it has over how we act is changing us almost day by day... and the most dominant piece of technology would be the smart phone - literally dominating our lives.
So now we sit on the bus or in a cafe, and now even on commercial aircraft and can be constantly connected to the world, and with this lust we can't stop. Every device can capture still photographs of such high quality they will put even the most expensive digital camera to shame on a 'quality to weight' ratio. And then comes the video capability... yes, people still have not quite grasped the concept that TV, video, etc is broadcast in a landscape format, and decide that holding a phone the normal way is the way to video, but I will look past this naivety for now. People of today seem to have an unquenching desire to show the rest of the world what is happening in their life or other's lives around them. And here lies the problem... recently illustrated in a very blunt and topical way in Malmö two weeks ago. A Young boy of nine years old was being held down on the ground by a security guard in Central Station, appearing to cause the boy considerable discomfort. As to the exact reasons surrounding the event, I am not to judge or make claim to vast knowledge of what instigated this. What I can say, without doubt, is that the video footage captured by one of the bystanders on his mobile device was swept up by the Swedish media and broadcast long before any real facts were known. True, the media is there to supply to public with information, and anything that visualises violence or pain is jumped on by the Swedish people within hours, creating vast discussions on social networks and over hot or cold beverages. This action by the media surrounding the event above, was far beyond fair or reasonable, and instantly incited hate and disgust towards the security guard involved... almost beyond doubt, as the video showed. No one seemed to read the article accompanying the video footage, which the witness recording the event declared he did not see how it started, and even made assumptions as to noises he heard prior to pressing record. So the topic went on for another ten days, with more information coming to light, and more witnesses declaring the security guard was not at fault and justified in his actions. But guess what... no video to support these words, so people (even some I chatted on-line to) concluded that the other witness must be mistaken and can't be taken seriously without some sort of visual media backing them up. Seriously!?? The general attitude was, 'if I can't see it, I don't believe it', even if the original video was cut and pasted together to favour the media's bias stance in their first report. So the news went on, and many more articles were written about the subject, and interest was lost after no more video footage could be found... how ironic.
The mobile devices are not all to blame... with the power of Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, and Google+ (whatever that is!?), we are drawn ever more towards educating the world on what we do, eat, and think. Then we head out on our own personal crusade trying to change the world to our way of thinking. Damn... I'm even doing it now through this post :P Trying to draw an illustration in someone's head without the use of visual interface is proving more and more difficult, and maybe I can live in hope that my words are making a difference in this matter. Until I know for sure, I can rest assured that the people sleep at night believing that the camera never lies, and conclusions brought upon by this visual delight must never be wrong. I don't know what is more scary... how easily we are lead by visuals or by the machines allowing them to exist in the first place ;)
Footnote: no pic in this post, as I didn't want to influence you :D
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