Immediately, when I look at the sheer number of names in such close proximity, my sentiments towards the victims are somewhat unclear. On the contrary, when I look at the individuals names, the feelings return ten-fold. The thought of so many people losing their lives in the line of duty is extremely sobering. Every single person on that wall had a story and especially, devastated loved ones upon hearing the news of their deaths.
In my generation though, I feel the meaning of each individual to their loved ones gets lost due to the insensitivity of video games. As one can see in the video below, the mass killings of many people is celebrated, while in real life, those deaths would be absolutely devastating to loved ones.
Now, this may not be the case will all video gamers. Some may have actually lost loved ones in the line of duty for the United States and other countries around the world. This being said, I do truly feel that many kids of my generation have been desensitized to death through warfare because of games such as the one shown (Call of Duty: Black Ops). Personally, I find the game extremely entertaining, but have to constantly remind myself of the realistic side of warfare. In addition, pictures like the one I saw in the Columbia College exhibit help me remind myself of such warfare realities.
I completely agree with you here. As a big fan of the show Criminal Minds, I can definitely see that the media has desensitized us to violence. Sometimes my mom passes by while I'm watching Criminal Minds, and she is just horrified by the things that happen to people in the show and how disturbing it is. While Criminal Minds is really disturbing and scary at times, I have little to no reaction to some of the things she finds terrifying on the show. I don't know if this generation being able to stomach more violent shows/movies than the last is necessarily a bad thing, but when it comes to all those war games, I do feel that they somehow glorify war in a way I don't feel comfortable with. It seems very, very wrong that there are people out there fighting for our country and their lives, while there are video games where the objective is to up the body count and kill as many people as possible, for fun.
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