Amateur video often catches fights, wrecks, disasters, and other unordinary things that often appear on social media. Alex McFarland, a Christian apologist, shared his thoughts with AFN.
"One of the most chronic needs in today's world is discipline and real maturity when it comes to the use of mobile devices," says McFarland.
He pointed to a French study from October estimates children will spend one third of their life on a mobile device. That is 25 years of their life on average.
“Another casualty of the ubiquity of technology has really been etiquette or manners. So often — and I know we all use phones — but it just seems like anything is fair game to get posted on social media, whether it be something humorous or funny, or even something tragic like a car wreck or a crime," states McFarland.
He said neither modesty, nor compassion are often really considered.
"The addiction to likes and shares and upvotes cause many people to compromise privacy, film anything, and post it,” says McFarland. “As with so many things in life, we need to show restraint and maturity and self-discipline when it comes to this 24/7 invasion of our world that technology has become."
McFarland recalled a famous story from about four to five years ago. A groups of teenagers came across a terrible car wreck, and instead of helping, they filmed the man who was in it in his dying moments.
“You can go on the video and hear these teens gloating on what a great, short video they were going to have because it was almost like an exclusive. This guy is dying," states McFarland.
McFarland pointed out there are Good Samaritan laws, where people who intend to help and intervene during an emergency to shield them from civil liability and lawsuits. He said biblically, sometimes, a Good Samaritan is needed, and sometimes people are presented with a circumstance in which they are to be the Good Samaritan, not a videographer or a social media opportunist.
According to him, Aristotle and the Greeks called it the Law of General Beneficence —that people are supposed to help.
“My goodness, when we see another person in pain or in danger or in some extenuating circumstance, the appropriate response is not to whip out the phone for the best possible selfie," expresses McFarland.
McFarland called out parents, saying that they need to help young people understand that life is not a video game. He feared that shooting games have desensitized people to when the see real circumstances of those in pain or in danger.
“We need to have compassion or maybe even help out or intervene. It's not a video game," stresses McFarland.
He said that real people experience real circumstances, and that the godly, mature response is not to be a social media opportunist, but to help.
"We're not just to gloat over and be a voyeur observing people's pain. Loving our neighbor as Christ told us to do means that we are to intervene and help out when we can,” concludes McFarland.
