So many people try to claim that this is a new moment in history year this is a historic moment and try to make things out to be bigger than they are. They're trying to sell advertising or get their numbers or get attention.
Is all of this an outgrowth of the generations that grew up with parents applauding them when they did anything? And then trophies being given to everybody despite them losing?
As I watch the latest iteration of technology make recording video ubiquitous if you want to use a big word it's shocking how much kids are growing up in front of cameras. As a 50+-year-old man I've watched the effects of cameras. They draw out the extremes and unusual behavior that changes things from a normal outcome to an abnormal outcome. An example: my oldest son and I would always tangle because I, as a parent, wanted to take pictures of him as he grew up. He wanted to make funny faces every time I took pictures. And so I would get upset with him and tell him to stop making the damn funny faces and just smile. As an adult he now has this goofy looking grin expression that is not his smile that he makes in almost every picture that he has taken of him or takes of himself to post on social media. And I can see in his eyes that he's getting back at me instead of smiling normally.
Cameras change behavior. When people know the cameras are on traffic lights they actually stop for red lights. When people know the cameras are aimed at them they behave differently.
I've seen this tried in other ways in the past. I remember a news story about Rio de Janeiro Rio hiring mimes to go and stand on street corners of busy and dangerous intersections to stand there and wag their finger and point accusingly at people doing things that were risky in order to cut down on accidents. It actually worked! Death count went down and the city was a little bit safer.
Once we know that cameras are watching is pretty much everywhere now in the United States, not unlike in China, I have a feeling people will change their behavior even more. And may even come up late with ways to defeat the cameras and present themselves as somebody else.
What are you doing about cameras?
