This morning Haiti was hit by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

I found out about while watching CNN--the first time my TV has been on in months--and thought to myself something like "it seems like there's been a lot of disasters lately." But why? Intellectually I think if I did the research I wouldn't find support in historical data, but it does feel that way. I'm going to go ahead and credit two things for that feeling: my parents and technology.

As a child, I think I was largely shielded from most catastrophic news and so, with the exception of Desert Storm, have a relatively clean recollection of the world climate for the first 13ish years of my life.

In terms of technology, I think that the increased amount and quality of images and video that saturates every aspect of modern society, in combination with broadband Internet, has created a more palpable sense of reality beyond our familiar geography. Even reading about an earthquake, tsunami, or explosion now comes with a greater sense of immediacy and is more personal than it was to previous generations because we can connect it to real images we've seen instead of being forced to conceptualized unfathomable horror (and usually just avoiding the task).

There are aspects of TV and the Internet that have been said to desensitize those that consume them because of the volume of violent (et al) images contained therein. I don't know enough about the psychological studies to comment knowledgably, but my gut tells me there's something to it. However, I think the blame is placed wrongly. The problem is not violent images, television, news, etc. The problem is the exploitation of the very sorts of personal connections enabled by multimedia: sensationalism instead of reporting, fear mongering, melodramatic coverage of non-stories, and getting every American to ask "how does it impact me?" Violence exists in reality. Reporting reality will include violence. When the news ceases to accurately reflect reality, teasing things like "WILL IPODS KILL YOUR CHILDREN??...We'll tell ya, at 11!" or prioritizing local home invasions to get ratings is when there's a problem.

When searching for "earthquake haiti" on Google News, sorting by date, then going back and looking for the first headlines of the earthquake, the very first is a quick news flash from MarketWatch. The second is from laist.com, titled "Earthquakes in Northern California & Haiti a Good Reminder for L.A. to Get Prepared." There are absolutely no details of the event, just that it happened, followed by what Californians should do to prepare.

What I never hear pointed out (and this just might be my ignorance), is the opposite effect. Not only does watching video of the aftermath of a disaster taken by someone in the thick of the situation bring us closer to it, but I think that the media--raw citizen media in particular--can now, to a certain degree, actually sensitize us to world events and the conditions of others. These aren't plastic news anchors sitting at a desk with an image superimposed over their suit-clad shoulder, these are real people whose eyes we're looking through.

Good news coverage of events like this, because technology will bring us closer to them, will always elicit very essential human emotions. Just stop it with the "how will it affect you?!" nonsense already. ...Unfortunately, as living things are inherently self-centered to some degree (or else would have gone extinct), scare tactics get ratings.

So how to fix it? The only things I can think of are the Internet and better media literacy. Learn how to identify spin and sensationalism and read the facts with a skeptical eye for accompanying analysis. Dismiss television news altogether unless you're looking for entertainment. That includes CNN and MSNBC. Avoid being a captive audience. Even better, down with passive consumerism! Rah rah Web 2.0! All hail citizen media! The Internet rules! Wait...I don't remember what were we talking about.

Yeah yeah, I know people have been preaching this stuff for years (media literacy, citizen media, and the woes of sensationalism), but it's important so here it is again.