Now, Why Is It Bad To Watch People Die?

Watching people die can have psychological consequences. Some individuals may become desensitized, while others may experience distress or even post-traumatic stress disorder. The trauma of watching someone die can be quite debilitating for one's mental health. Most people are familiar with Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler's five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These effects can be compounded when you're the one watching someone die.

Interestingly, our fascination with death and the act of watching it has been around for a long time. Humans have sadistic urges, masochistic urges, and voyeuristic urges. However, it's only in the past few decades that spectatorship of death has grown widespread. Technology plays a significant role in this phenomenon. Let's explore further:

Faces of Death: About forty years ago, the cult classic film “Faces of Death” brought to light our collective desire to see what J.G. Ballard called “the horrors of the real.” This 105-minute compilation of killings and autopsies was purportedly the first movie to depict real people dying on screen. Although most of the deaths were later revealed to be fake, it became the first viral video.

Digital Cameras and Dial-Up Internet: In the 1990s, the ubiquity of digital cameras and dial-up internet gave rise to the first “shock sites”. Rotten.com, a digital house of real-life horrors, attracted thousands of visitors daily who sought out the most gruesome content in existence.

Cellphones and Proliferation of Shock Sites: By the mid-aughts, anyone with a cellphone could take and share photos and videos of anything, anywhere, at any time. The number of video-focused shock sites proliferated, making death something whose sights and sounds could be freely consumed by millions of people.

In summary, while our fascination with death and the act of watching it is not new, the widespread availability of technology has amplified our exposure to such content.