I first heard about the explosions at the Boston Marathon on Facebook about two minutes after they initially happened. I spent the next several minutes on Twitter and FB waiting for each and every update. I was home with my kids, so I didn’t want to turn on TV, not knowing what I (and they) would see. I also wasn’t ready for any questions my kids had, because I didn’t have any answers.
I really appreciated the ability to get the information, without having to get my kids involved. After the initial reports, I took a break from checking because I figured, like with any major event, there would just be a rehashing of the same information over and over for a few hours, until any new information became available.
What happened a few hours later when I went back to check Twitter and FB kind of shocked me. People were back to posting the usual stuff- vacations, food, how much they don’t like their job, how they are tired, etc. I couldn’t believe it. Pages that I follow were back to normal, trying to sell stuff like nothing had even happened at all. Now, maybe this is how some people feel all the time, there are wars going on and bad things happening all over the world, and we continue to ignore them, posting funny quotes or talking about what happened during our day instead. Spending time focusing on trivial things that don’t truly matter instead of the important things.
I’m not sure what makes this so different in my mind. Is it because I’m a runner and can identify with being at an event similar to this. Is it that I will be running in a race with 40,000 other people coming up in a couple of short weeks? Maybe. Maybe, I’m overreacting. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. I know it’s not good to dwell on bad things, but come on, at least let a few hours go by before you post a picture of your kids being silly or trying to sell me a shirt.
-Pete