News, Social Media, and Gawkers

I was just looking online at the local paper. One of my mentees advised she cannot attend the professional development seminar due to attending a funeral. Five members of her family were all killed in an auto collision yesterday.  I looked to see if there was news coverage of this, as it had to be a rather serious collision to take that many lives.  The photographs were horrid. Again, unlike what we are familiar with at home, nothing is spared in showing what happened over this way.  But what is even more pathetic is there are options to post them on FaceBook, Tweets and Pinterest.  I am completely amazed that anyone would choose these options. Especially this new Pinterest one, which I thought was a site to gather things one likes to keep a folder of interesting articles, pictures, and whatnot.  This is interesting?  What; you open a new file beside your favourite design and remodelling file and call it collisions of interest?  I should not be surprised. Whenever I come upon abandoned vehicles strewn about the traffic lanes on the highway I can be sure that not far ahead, there will be carnage of some magnitude that gawkers cannot seem to get enough of.

I guess just as hawkers keep thriving because people have a need to buy something; the same holds true for gawkers. As long as there are gawkers, the new social media will flourish.