Makes no difference

Big article about the power of the smartphone in reporting the world’s issues, the highlight of the article being the coup in Myanmar (“Chilling smartphone imagery stuns a watching world,” Mar.20, Gulf Today).

But the article, while it extols the power of the smartphone and the internet to transmit images to the world in a matter of seconds, doesn’t say much about what happens after. Generally nothing happens. The world gets the images, the world stays informed and immediately moves on to the other images of perhaps other gruesome stuff or a celebrity having a baby or a bad hair day.

What difference does the power of the internet make, if it doesn’t make a difference? We talk about the Myanmar coup but what has the world done about it?

India’s farmers have been protesting for over 100 days. What has the world done? Ohh and ahhed at the images and swiped next.

I don’t get the point of the article. It’s rumination. A rambling of the power of the smartphone. Sure, one doesn’t require media houses to get the news. Citizens do it. But is that all there is? For the world to be kept informed and then turn a blind eye? But that’s what’s happening with all issues. We saw Koalas getting burned in the Australian fires. Animals getting burnt in the Amazon fires. Yemen’s children are stunted with their bones jutting out of their skin. The images are transmitted to us in real time. What are we doing about it?

Byron Menezes
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