It seems as though ever since we were given cameras, recorders and smart phones, our world has become full of people who have a compulsion to record everything.
It may not be such a horrible thing to want to record daily life and what goes on around you, but when do we reach the limit?
Today we have been witnesses to people who stop mid-car ride to capture a brawl happening in the streets or those who run across campus like the world is ending just to Snapchat a car that flipped in the Delta parking lot.
However, when something serious and tragic goes on, should people still be thinking about recording their surroundings?
Or should they know that it is neither the time nor place to do such a thing?
“It is in between because you want people to record to know what is going on but at the same time people don’t get the full story when they record,” said Delta student Jileisa Goins.
Although some may argue that capturing a scene is a way of informing the world of events, what about those who live stream people dying?
What are they contributing to the world?
Obdulia Sanchez’s live stream video in July 2017 of her driving carelessly and live streaming all at once went viral after she crashed the car. Her young sister died in the accident.
However, what made this video spread throughout the internet was that after the car crash Sanchez got out of the car and continued to live stream her sister’s dead body lying on the ground.
In a time like this, how could someone not want to grieve for their loss and show remorse rather than upload a video?
Those who claim that it’s typically the “young and reckless” who engage in behavior such as this are wrong.
We have full grown adults who are old enough to contemplate life threatening decisions, yet they still put themselves in harms way to record or take photos of events.
The events of the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas were also streamed.
Justin Zimmerman, a victim of the mass shooting that took place in Las Vegas, was separated from his friends and forced to contemplate whether to find shelter where he was or run for his life.
While his adrenaline was pumping and sweat drenched him, he somehow managed to pull out his phone and capture footage of the scene.
In my opinion, there is no way I would stop to take a video of a mass shooting when I didn’t even have a safe place to take cover.
Recently, there was a married couple from Redwood Valley who failed to flee the wild fires in order to reach safety.
The couple, Andre Epstein and Neda Monshat, had to go out onto a roadway that had high flames on both sides of the road and said that they were scared their car would blow up due to the heat.
Now, take that into consideration. You’re in a situation where you think you car may blow up, there is fire on all sides of you, and there is possibly no way to escape?
How is that you would rather pull your phone out to record the fire around you to maybe upload later, if you survive, rather than think about what way you can escape.
Pulling out my phone would be the last thing on my mind because I’d be too concerned about making it out alive.
We have developed a society that seems to value a consistency of recording every last event that takes place, but although there is nothing wrong with showing footage, we should remember there is a time and place to do such things.
