Death by Selfie

I was watching a documentary on people who do these things. The leaning out of a speeding train thing is very popular. Who cares if you're killed, as long as the 'hits' keep coming.  One of the worst was a woman filming herself leaning out the window of a speeding car. So made up with getting the right pose - didn't see the road sign coming. It was quick, at least.

Social media is a form of death, I think.  It's not living, anyway (ABCTales aside, of course!)

Thanks, airyfairy, for your thoughtful and balanced response. I admit that it goes against the grain for me to feel a certain level of indifference to these tragedies. It's complicated - and in that sense I can understand how my words can be seen as glib.  And I most certainly do empathise with those people that are left behind to pick up the pieces.  I wholeheartedly agree that it's desperately sad.  Not just because of what their loved ones have done, but because of the reasons and motives behind why they've done what they've done with such tragic results.

Yes, people have always done dangerous and downright stupid things (including myself).  What I think has changed now, though, is some of the reasoning behind why they do them.  For me, it was a personal dare, a personal challenge.  No one else needed to be involved (unless, of course, it had all gone wrong).  Now, though, in an age of potential global social media fame, there are other motives - and motives that have been engendered by the way society and culture have been so drastically (as well as, in many ways, positively) changed by all of these things, and in so short a space of time: fame, recognition, admiration... and, it has to be said, the prospect of 'hits' and financial reward.  I never chanced my life in my youth for any of those reasons. Sadly, these platforms have now opened up opportunities that never existed before to exploit these motives.

Having said that, I also understand how the need for recognition, self-fulfilment, admiration and acceptance can drive people within that context.  And that is also desperately sad. Society as it is breeds that need. People have to show that they are someone. That they're above the rest.  It's a natural human need, of course - to be achieving, to be better than.  Yet I still feel it's a distortion.  A misdirection.  We can still 'be' without 'being' in such an extreme and ostentatious way.

I feel for young people now, who are brought up on this stuff and who will live lives that can never truly be separated from it. The social engineering that the tech giants and their platforms have enacted has had, I think, a largely negative impact. It's not just in the kinds of acts that I mention, but in the way it has rewired our brains (again, especially amongst the young).  Nothing dismays me more than seeing childhood essentially taken away from children by their addiction to what these gadgets and platforms have inflicted upon them. I can't help but feel that the consequences - already evident in misinformation, disinformation, negative influencing, mental health problems, suicides and (effectively, in many senses) mind-controlling - will lead to catastrophic outcomes in the future.

I hope I'm wrong, of course.  Many will probably see this as my denial of progress.  I don't see it as progress, though, because that has more optimistic and positive implications.  For me, it's just moving forward, going with the flow of what we're given... and being left with little choice but to give in to it.

We accept it all as positive, and see it in terms of 'convenience', 'security' and so on.  But we've hardly been given a breathing space - so fast has it happened and continues to happen - to take stock, question, understand it properly, acknowledge what it's doing, prepare for where it may lead us.  We've failed to manage it properly - and that's just our first encounter with AI. What comes next is anyone's guess - including the experts who are much better informed than we are.

Yes, I agree.  I watched a video the other day of a free concert REM gave in downtown Toronto in 2002.  The streets were jam-packed.  From the stage perspective, all you could see was a vast ocean of happy, smiling faces - people dancing, singing, having a great time. Some were obviously taking photographs - but using cameras!  Then I watched a recent gig with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - and he actually stopped and refused to carry on performing until - as he put it to the audience - "You put your fucking phones down and just enjoy the gig."  One guy got quite shirty about it and they had a bit of a slanging match. It sickens me.  It's one of the reasons I don't go to public events anymore.  We had a minor car crash in town a while back and one of the cars caught fire.  And there was a small crowd of people gathered around, phones up, filming it. It makes me despair.