my first thought upon reading these news was that 1) its odd that after all these years, that osama has been killed right at a time that is perfect for president obama with re-elections coming up, 2) that there are no pictures and 3) no body since it was buried at sea. now i don't mean to be a conspiracy theorist and i do understand that there are good reasons for the above facts (in islamic culture you have to be buried within 24-hours and that he was buried at sea because no one wanted him buried in their land plus then no opportunity for shrines around the grave, etc.) but those were my first thoughts.
secondly when i read the explanations and heard about the confirmation with the dna testing i was thrilled that such an evil man and head leader of terrorism, especially of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, had been finally caught and killed.
thirdly i kept scanning my facebook feed and twitter timeline looking for new information and people's comments. what i did not expect to find was complaints. complaints about how this topic was overused and how people wished it would stop showing up in their feeds.
this stopped me in my tracks. i kind of laughed at the bad attitudes of certain people, but the more i thought about it the more it bothered me. i can't keep it from getting under my skin.
after thinking about it more - thinking about WHY this should bother me more than most things - i starting thinking the question which is the title of this post: is social networking making us cavalier (i.e., showing a lack of proper concern)?
i understand you can't feel the enormity of what's going on in the world all the time. i myself find myself scanning news twitters and seeing titles for horrible things like "10 killed in bomb explosion" and "sudan's split could usher in a new era of war, not peace" and most days i have to admit, i just scan on by or get bored and switch to a friend or celebrities twitter list.
but in seeing all these things on twitter and having them all mixed in with a bunch of other stuff - people talking about their iphones, posting pictures via instagram, talking about the royal wedding, panthers team changes - i wonder if important news is being downgraded to just another tweet easily passed by.
it has bothered me considerably today to see people grouping news about bin laden in with topics like the royal wedding and the panthers. surely there is a level of importance with news, tweets and fb posts. talking about your iphone is surely less important news than the royal wedding. the royal wedding was not just an event - it was history and it is important to keep up with the important things happening in the world. but then beyond the royal wedding is news about what obama is doing as president, what's happening in our government and big news like osama bin laden being captured and killed.
#osama is not just a hashtag that's trending. its not a #rebeccablack/#friday phenomenon - or at least it shouldn't be. but i'm afraid that's what it is for many young people. "okay - #osama has been clogging up my wall, my feed, my timeline all day. can we stop talking about this already."
this cavalier and sometimes cynical attitude that has infiltrated a lot of twitter and facebook is disturbing. has anyone stopped to think about what this means? osama bin laden - the guy responsible for heading up the attacks on nyc on sept 11th has been captured and killed! this is a great victory. do you think people were saying a day or two after hitler had been killed, "oh god- can you please stop talking about him already"? and even beyond celebrating an american victory, this could mean a rise in terrorist attacks - bin laden's followers rising up in protest of their leader being killed. we don't know what's ahead... but for goodness sake, its not a trend that's been overworked and ready to pass out of the limelight.
if we as young people don't take an interest in these things - who will? i don't mean to be cheesy or anything, but we are the future of america. i'm ashamed of myself for not knowing more about our government at the moment - i was reading something and noticed hillary clinton was secretary of state - i admit i had completely forgotten she was! so i'm not saying i'm perfect - i have far to go in knowing how to make informed decisions in regard to politics - but i'm trying.
we must not become so lulled into our existence of finals papers and starbucks and average daily life that we stop caring about what's going on in our world. if we don't know or understand things about our government or what's happening, we need to search truth out and learn! we need to get involved and have an opinion about things. i know my parents won't be around forever to tell me who's good to vote for and what are good views to take. these are things i must know and think for myself. i live in and benefit from this country and i must learn how to represent it well when the chief responsibility falls on me as the elder generation some day.
so, please please please, lets not say "can we stop talking about this already" or "i can't believe #obama is still trending". this is important and we should think of it as important and not just something else to be put in a list with nonessential things.
i am afraid if we are not careful, we will continue to become increasing lazy in forming political opinions and even if we know about stuff to become so cynical to the point we don't even care what happens in our government or country. lets never stop caring about what's happening in our world or working to support and uphold truth in our country. its our jobs to figure out what we believe in and to take a stand for it both personally and governmentally.
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