Prioritise saving lives in emergency situations over taking photos, videos

In the past, people were pre­pared to act quickly in dire circumstances, like breaking up fights, and lives were saved as a result.

However, in this day and age when everything is trending on social media onlookers concen­trate on taking photos or videos rather than intervening to save the lives of people in distress.

Traditional media outlets and social media users compete with one another to be the first to report on a story.

Instead of acting swiftly to remedy the situation, viewers’ attention is diverted by the im­pulse to document a moment of injustice or danger. It is current­ly a widespread practice that re­quires comprehensive attention.

In numerous instances, the individuals who took pictures and shared them on social media had the opportunity to save lives. When you have the ability to save the life of someone who is about to die, why must you record them?

Our culture now prioritises being viral over lending a hand to others. Sometimes people witness emergencies, but they would rather wait for someone else to take action.

One typical example is a video of two students fighting that went viral on social media lately. Surprisingly, their friends were videoing the fight until something unexpected hap­pened. Similar circumstances have resulted in fatalities in the past.

The Spectator disapproves of this behaviour because life is more valuable than images and videos and that the people who took the photos and videos could have saved a life if they had acted sooner.

Even while some might con­tend that images and videos can be used as proof in investiga­tions into an incident, there are times when saving a life is more important than videoing, par­ticularly when there is a risk to life and the only person present is the one taking the photo or recording.

Since saving a life has a sig­nificant impact on the person, their family, and the communi­ty, it is thought to be the most morally just thing to do.

The Spectator believes that while images and videos are useful and can be used to swift­ly convey important information to others, the time, effort, and tools required to capture images or videos could be employed to save lives in an emergency.

When a life-threatening situation arises, we should first contact for assistance from the police or ambulance service, or if we are able, provide prompt assistance before anything else happens.

In an emergency, let us be Good Samaritans and put saving lives ahead of snapping photos and videos.