Media hysteria

The mood has changed as people realise that next month we may at last see the revival from pandemic conditions. There is still uncertainty and many problems lie ahead, but there is tremendous relief. 

I think we shall very soon take up where we left off and again start to enjoy ourselves. But it will not be the same. 

Life is so fast and complicated these days - utterly different from my early life. And the main reason is the overwhelming influence of the media. 

We are now characters in a drama.  

I have written before about it in my diary and it has intensified over the months. Everything is larger than life. We have been drawn into this make believe.

It  is demonstrated in many ways. For example, the near hysterical approach to events.There have  always been dramatic happenings, local, national and international that have made ‘news’, first by word of mouth and now the staple diet of the ever-developing media and information delivery platforms.

But the reporting has reached a new, hysterical level. How can a national newspaper devote 20 pages in one day to the BBC’s interview with Princess Diana, and 40 more pages over the next few days? 

We are being taught, demanded almost, to join in mass hysteria over death and people’s grief, people we have never met or even heard of before, like murder victims,

We may be shocked by the horrifying scenes from India but do we need to be reminded of it every hour for a week on end, do we need to see the placing of flowers,  hundreds or even thousands, at the scene of death - teddy bears in the case of children?

Apart from these magnified manifestations of mourning we have become more shallow in many ways, more selfish and materialistic.

We need to change if the post pandemic world is to be enjoyable, let alone bearable.

Or am I being over pessimistic, old fashioned?