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Byte Size Pieces of Shock

This is to make a comment about how we handle disasters online.  

 It's been a bad few months.  Hurricane Sandy, Sandy Hook Shootings and the Mayan Apocalypse. (I'm only putting them in the same category of "internet buzz", rather than according to serious tragedies)

 The Hurricane had buildup for a few days, maybe a week prior.  During and the tail has been very long, especially the Occupy Sandy piece.  Shootings have a huge "During" moment, and a traumatic few days afterwards.  Then fade. (Sadly or naturally, I'm not about to judge).  And what is essentially a grown-up version of a ghost story by the campfire.  Mayan Apocolypse, end of the world.  Excuse to party.  Now this is a tragedy we can all get behind!  (In a super-cynical, rehearsal-for-thinking-about-our-own mortality sort of way).  And then we will wake up and deal, and forget completely.

For decades, television, radio, newspapers and magazines had dictated the cycles to us.  The Grieving Cycles.  The proper time for commemoration, and then the next phase of how we analyze.  Add to that all of the emotional stresses of the commercial and social event called the "Holiday Season".  Religious & cultural gift giving plus secular idea of starting over in a new calendar year must fill some some of primitive ritual cleansing or burden.

 With the Hurricane, it was a matter of making sure it was kept in the public eye.  People still suffering, still without power.  With the shootings, it's a matter of when does the gun debate begin.  Talking about the best talking points you've seen the day after, combining with politics.  Funerals are now overlapping with new restrictions, a week later.   Newsweek might have come out with an intelligent take-but haven't they stopped publishing? The biggest meme among my friends on Facebook is to complain about being on FB during their final hours.  Representative of their lives or as the ultimate rejection of superstition.

 Is it better that we have this public, commonly shared experience of shock and grief online?  What is the psychological impact (or benefits) to huddling around a radio with family or strangers to get the latest pieces of news?  No answers, just the basis for a long-term psychological/sociological study.  

 We are all in on this experiment.

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