A quick look at the trending topics on Twitter reveals that most of the social media platform's users are currently describing "#2016in3words". Of the hundreds of tweets with countless humorous remarks, jabbing sad sentences, satirical backlash, and anger, most of the tweets can be summed up with a simple gif.
At the time this article is written, there are 7964 tweets about #2016in3Words, 24,900 tweets about #ThingsTrumpWillNeverHave, and 1.2 Million tweets about #Turkey.
The week before on July 7, 2016, twelve police officers were shot in Dallas, Texas by a sniper vowing hatred towards towards white people and especially white police. As the event carried on, Twitter users reported and spread news updates at rates sometimes faster than live television could break them. The Dallas Police Department tweeted updates that were shared by the hundreds minutes before the news stations reported an update.
At first, the Dallas Police Department had asked citizens to look for a man believed to be a person of interest, and it seemed the whole of Twitter had become investigative journalists. Within half an hour, Twitter had proven his whereabouts through the accumulation and spreading of footage of the man at different places when the attack was occurring.
A few weeks before, on June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 53 other were wounded in the shooting of the Orlando nightclub. Shortly after news of the shooting broke, videos of victims taken during the shooting soon spread around the internet and news outlets.
When one goes back in times a few months to the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015, when 130 people were killed and 368 were injured, live footage spread across the internet of the police raiding the apartments of the terrorists. The bombs could be heard exploding during the live broadcast of a German vs France soccer game.
In all of these instances, the world has immediately become aware of the tragedies unfolding as people are capable of sharing photos, videos, statues, and tweets across the globe to meet the eyes of millions of internet users. Days after the tragedies, new footage usually emerges that keeps the public occupied with the situation until another event steals the spotlight. If the gap lasts too long, 2016 has been dubbed the year of celebrity deaths.
It seems as though these terrible events in the world occur one after another in quick succession, and more and more the sentiment can be heard that people are growing wary of the direction the world is seemingly heading. I'm sure after reading all of the above, you're feeling a bit weary as well.
A top photo on the social media and sharing platform Reddit portrays this adequately with a post titled "How 2016 Feels".
But is the world really getting worse? Are the occurrences of crime, the amount of poverty, and the number of violent deaths rising? As it happens, the answer is no.
As narrated in one of my favorite TED Talks, "How Not to be Ignorant About the World", global trends in economics, poverty and education are actually looking better for more and more people. As Hans Rosling shows in the beginning, the point of view that people generally hold now days are disconcertingly pessimistic. The media that we're exposed to and engulfed in thanks to social media and globalization creates a bleak, death and poverty ridden portrait of the world.
According to the United Nations 2015 update on International Crime, global incidents of homicide, robbery and rape have either remained stable or decreased in number. The number of car jacking have halved globally, and reported burglaries have reduced by more than a quarter.
The article, "Why the World is Not Falling Apart", brings up interesting statistics, such as that in most years common accidents and bee stings kill more Americans than terrorist attacks. The rate of homicides in Mexico has been falling since the 1940s, and criminologists believe that a 50 percent global reduction of violence is feasible within the next three decades. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, rape/sexual assault rates and the rates of violence against intimate partners has been decreasing since the early 1990s.
The rate of genocide has continuously fallen since the World Wars, and according to the Early Warning Project in 2008, the prevalence of mass killings has been falling since the mid 1980s.
With what is constantly re tweeted, shared, and published as an immediate notification on one's phone, it is easy to forget that modern medicine is more advanced than ever. Technologies for growing food and transporting food are always being expanded. Humans have reached further into space than ever thought imaginable.
Too easily does social media and globalization create pessimism, as crime and death get more clicks and shares than success and good news. The horrible events of relatively peaceful times are emphasized and broadcast on screens in every persons pocket, but there is still good in the world.
