A mumuration, a whale almost swallows a surfer, and an eagle in a parachute: Does Internet video eliminate faith or make you believe?
Recent videos of chance encounters with starlings, eagles and whales highlight a growing global population and the increased capture of that population on video. Will the amassing of recorded history remove the need for faith? Or will the volume of knowledge make us humbly realise that we can never know all there is to know?
We are a recorded people
Statistics from a Cisco white paper note that:
- Video accounted for 40% of internet traffic in 2010, and is predicted at 50% by the end of 2012.
- By 2015, Internet video to TV will account for 16% of that traffic.
- By 2015, it will take you 5 years to watch all video streamed in one second.
- By 2015, the monthly consumption of video on demand will be comparable to watching 3 billion DVDs.
Video pervasiveness is now possible due to factors such as accessible storage capacity through YouTube and Vimeo, accessible bandwidth to the average consumer, and placing content creation capabilities in the hands of anyone with a mobile phone. This behaviour is normalised through media channels such as movies (The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield), TV (Funniest Home Videos programs) and websites (milkandcookies.com, jest.com) that reward user generated content and sensationalise amateur footage.
We now believe anyone can be a star, and media channels make this belief a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Removal or requirement of faith?
The social impacts from this shift are significant. The world’s population is getting ready to surpass 7 billion people and the number of unique interactions with each other and nature is increasing exponentially. As we spread across the globe, eagles will run into parachutists and whales into surfers, and we will capture it all on video.
With everything recorded, is there anything we won’t know? Like a Biblical doubting Thomas, a society fed by digital media could question reality unless it is available for download. Faith for the new generation could be based on receiving fact as embedded video.
And yet will we ever run out of content? Similar to my previous sentiments, not until each of us has personally recorded for ourselves our lives in a manner we deem appropriate. This presents hope for each of us to not only continue uploading our own story, but to believe in that which is not yet recorded or perhaps is not accessible for digital consumption.
Viewers of the videos like the ones above and below that inspired this post have a choice between two perspectives. You can believe that all truth can be captured, and that the Internet will soon reveal all there is to know. Alternatively, the sheer volume of content and diversity of interactions leads you to humbly believe that there are things that even the Almighty Internet may not be able to reveal.