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Printer-Friendly ModeRepetitiveness of media desensitizes
April 23, 2007 —
It seems like we all kind of expected something like this to happen. I was shocked, yet not really surprised. The shootings at Virginia Tech this week stunned us all, but were we stunned because it was what was expected of us?
In a discussion in my creative writing class, it was brought up that we're possibly all just "programmed" to feel certain ways. Something bad happens like this, and immediately we all freak out. I think that most of us reacted in the same way; we felt disgusted and hurt by what has happened, but I wonder if these feelings are true. I'm not saying that they aren't, but I question if every person is actually personally hurt and affected by the event.
What happened in Virginia was terrible. Other terrible things are happening every day, so why aren't we upset all of the time? The truth is, we are used to starvation, war and bombings in other countries, and it isn't a good thing.
The way the media depicts things has ruined our outlook on terrible events like the shootings. Before TV, people could only imagine the scene of a bombing, fire, or natural disaster. Today, we see things like that on TV all of the time. I feel that there is so much of it going on that it isn't real to us anymore; we feel that we are invincible to these things that happen.
I even find myself not as affected by these things as I feel that I should be. Again, is it because I feel like I'm supposed to feel that way? When I first saw the CNN reports about the shootings last week and I almost felt like it wasn't real. I wanted to feel scared for the people there and hurt by the event, but it took a while for it to hit me in that way. I wasn't really surprised by it and I felt like something was wrong with me because of it.
As I pondered the whole thing for a while, it began to hit me. I felt upset about everything and then I wondered what might happen if something like that were to happen on our campus. I thought of what I would do in an emergency situation.
In one of my classes, my professor asked us if SVSU had a lockdown policy. No one had heard anything and so being in a computer lab, we all scrambled to look it up. None of us could find anything other than policies referring to unknown substances, fires, bomb threats, and medical emergencies. We all had an idea of what to do in that type of situation, but were worried that there was no set plan in case of an armed intruder. We have fire drills and we get e-mails about what to do in case of bad weather, but do we know what to do if our lives are in danger because of something like a shooting?
I do feel that overall we have a good grasp on what to do in case of an emergency situation and how we would all react to it. The media coverage of situations like that is good to find out information, but I do feel like sometimes it's too much. Saying the same thing over and over desensitizes the situation, and we get sick of hearing it. Has the desensitization caused us to feel programmed?