Gone are the days when one had to watch an hour of TV news to see the same tragic explosion replay six times gone, too, are the more recent days when seeing the same tragic explosion six times meant clicking “replay” five times on YouTube. As Whitney Erin Boesel eloquently explained over at The Society Pages: Twitter's new product Vine is literally a loop of images, often replaying the explosions in a single click. Now, as we scroll through streams for updates sometimes clicking links which may have no warning that they lead to a photo of a man without legs. In those events, though, cable news was the main way we witnessed tragedy. The study found that people who watched more than four hours of TV coverage a day in the weeks immediately after both events went on to report PTSD symptoms and, after 9/11, more physical ailments than those that didn't. "I think it’s important for people to be aware that there is no psychological benefit to repeated exposure to graphic images of horror," she said at the time of the study. "I personally can't see any value in watching these things over and over again." Last fall, she completed a study on the lasting mental and physical effects of exposure to graphic images following 9/11 and the start of the Iraq War. "It's hard to know what might be the news value in any of this," Roxane Cohen Silver, a UC Irvine professor, told The Atlantic Wire. While Twitter offered the fastest, most up-to-date, and accurate information, it also served as an unfiltered chronicle of the most distressing imagery, which can have lasting mental and physical effects. Monday's horrific events at the Boston Marathon produced horrific images which in the age of social media news means an inescapable constant, unsolicited bombardment of the gruesome aftermath of a gruesome event. This article is from the archive of our partner.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |