Numbed by the Visual Onslaught

Quite unusually, I did not have a TV in my house growing up, just a computer. Wide screens and high definition film were thus a complete novelty to me. So, when my mum took us to the local shopping centre in the late ‘90s, my brother and I would end up standing outside the window of Dixons electronics store, mesmerised by the massive screens playing Sky Sports ads or movie trailers on loop. There we stood, for the next 20 minutes or so, basically hypnotised, until mum returned with the groceries.

Fast forward to the present day and I’m glad to say that I’ve broken the habit of standing transfixed in front of shop windows. However, visual media still holds the power to hypnotise me.

I’ve been reading Marshall McLuhan’s book ‘Understanding Media’, in which he speaks about the numbing effect of “hot” media like films and photos. I’ll let McLuhan explain his own term:

I know we’re entering the philosophical realm here, but stick with McLuhan for a bit longer.

He goes on to say that “hot” media – that is, any media that floods one single sense with maximum data and leaves no room for participation – has a numbing effect on the audience: “the hotting-up of one sense tends to effect hypnosis.”

That’s why I say that certain kinds of visual media still hold the power to hypnotise me.

And it seems to me that these “hot” mediums are more hypnotising than ever.

The development of the “auto-play” function in Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and the like, means that we can can be hypnotised for hours, as one episode after another floods our sense of vision in full, data-packed, high-definition.

“Infinite-scroll” on social media has the same effect. Content endlessly loads, creating an uninterrupted stream of visual data. Again, it’s easy to be hypnotised.

We lose track of time. But we lose more than that.

1. Our ability to observe is numbed

The stream of content hitting the back of our brain via our eyes means we know all sorts about the world. We have a sense of world events, of ‘what’s happening’ and what’s trending. But as we absorb the unending barrage of visual news and data, we lose the ability to look around and observe what’s happening or what’s at stake in our immediate context. With eyes plugged in to some device, we miss the emotion in other people’s faces and the colours in the clouds, we forget our neighbour exists and we become deeply uninformed about the needs on our doorstep – problems that we can actually help fix.

2. Our ability to feel compassion is numbed

As the visual onslaught continues, I find that my sense of compassion is numbed too. Our visual exposure to suffering is unlike anything our ancestors had to face. Scroll through video shorts of any social media platform and it is shocking the amount of pain and death and violence that you will see.

In raw HD, we are exposed to video after video from war-torn or disaster-struck regions. Hungry children. Orphaned children. Explosions. Injured men. Drone footage of war. We get a direct feed of it all.

At first it is traumatic. Then we become numb. We stop feeling for their plight because there is a limit to our emotional response. We can’t feel for every suffering soul in the world, after all. And so we casually scroll from comedy clip to the depths of suffering to a podcaster mocking the other party’s leader.

3. Our ability to imagine and create is numbed

In her latest post for After Babel, Freya India writes this:

Looking back to my TV-less childhood, the main blessing was that my imagination was stirred and stretched during the first 10 years of my life. I needed to imagine my own stories and create my own worlds. Because none were spoon-fed to me.

My brother and I were participants in the creative endeavour, we were the main characters of our own adventures. Not a member of the audience.

In the garden, we acted our part in some make-believe story. The broken climbing frame became a pirate ship. The wooden summer house that my Dad had built became a castle, then a school, then a space ship.

When we were tired of running around, we would sit on the floor or upside-down on the sofa, reading a book – our minds engaged, imagining the worlds that words only partly described.

Our senses were never over-loaded. The whole experience was never 100% downloaded or received in full, high definition form. We had to fill in the gaps of whatever story we were reading or hearing or acting out.

Guarding our Kids from the Visual Onslaught

As I reflect on all of this, with my own children in mind, I’m convinced we need to limit the exposure of the next generation to this onslaught of visual media.

I want my children to be participants in life, as they grow up. To notice the wonder of the world around them: the birds, the clouds, the sunset, and all the fascinating people who pass by. I want them to be explorers and inventors and storytellers. And I want their sense of compassion to be stirred, not dulled. I want them to know their neighbours, to care about their community, and to visit that sick lady around the corner.

In short, I want them to retain hold of their senses.

To have eyes and be able to see.

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Thanks for reading.

What have I missed? Or what resonates with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Stephen

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