“But hidden behind every viral video is a question we hardly ask. Who was behind the camera? And perhaps more importantly, did they try to help?”
Somewhere in Nigeria today, another disturbing video is making the rounds on social media.
By the time you read this, chances are thousands of people would have watched it. Hundreds would have left angry comments.
Some would have shared it with captions dripping with outrage.
Others would have moved on to the next trending topic before finishing their breakfast.
The Bystander, His Camera, Social Media And Effects On Humanity
But hidden behind every viral video is a question we hardly ask.
Who was behind the camera?
And perhaps more importantly,
Did they try to help?
Recent events have once again forced us to confront an uncomfortable truth about ourselves.
A young man was brutally assaulted while people watched. The assault was not merely witnessed; it was recorded. The blows were captured. The final moments were preserved on video.
Those present reportedly even summoned a nurse to confirm that he was no longer breathing before he was eventually taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Subsequent investigations would indicate that the allegation that triggered the violence was false.
Those facts should disturb us.
Not simply because an innocent life was lost, but because somewhere between the first blow and the last, human beings found enough composure to keep their cameras steady.
Don’t misunderstand me.
I am not against recording incidents. Far from it.
Many victims of injustice have obtained justice because someone pressed the record button.
Without amateur videos, countless cases of police brutality, domestic violence and abuse of power would have been dismissed as mere allegations.
Cameras have become indispensable witnesses in an age where truth is often contested.
But there is a world of difference between documenting evil and becoming comfortable in its presence.
That difference is called humanity.
I often wonder what has happened to us.
When did helping become secondary to filming?
When did we begin to believe that our civic responsibility ended once the “Record” button was pressed?
Perhaps, social media has conditioned us more than we realise.
Every event now feels like potential content. Every tragedy is viewed through the lens of virality.
We are no longer merely witnesses; we are accidental broadcasters, racing to upload before asking whether someone needs saving.
There is a Yoruba saying that “Ẹni tí iná bá ń jó ilé rẹ̀ kì í ka ògiri.” Loosely translated, a man whose house is on fire does not stop to admire the walls.
When life is slipping away before us, our first instinct should not be documentation. It should be preservation.
Now, before someone says, “Would you have confronted an angry mob?”, let me answer honestly.
Not every situation permits physical intervention. Crowds can be unpredictable and violent. No sensible person should recklessly throw away their own life.
But helping is bigger than physically fighting attackers.
Raise an alarm.
Call the police.
Call for an ambulance.
Gather more people.
Distract the attackers.
Do something.
Anything.
Because recording alone rarely saves lives.
Psychologists have long described what they call the bystander effect. The tendency for people to assume someone else will intervene when many people are present.
I fear we have added another layer to it. The smartphone has made us feel useful without necessarily being useful.
We mistake participation for compassion.
They are not the same.
What worries me even more is what happens afterwards.
The victim’s family may be seeing those horrifying moments for the first time through social media. Their loved one’s final minutes become public property.
Complete strangers argue in comment sections. Others crack jokes. Some edit the videos for engagement.
Before long, another trend replaces it, while one family begins a lifetime of grief.
That cannot be who we are.
Or perhaps more painfully, maybe it already is.
A society should not only be judged by the quality of its roads, its economy or its technology.
It should also be judged by how ordinary citizens respond when another human being is in danger.
Civilisation is not measured by the number of smartphones in our pockets.
It is measured by the amount of compassion in our hearts.
The next time tragedy unfolds before us, I hope our first instinct will not be to check whether our phone battery is full.
I hope it will be to ask, “How do we save this person?”
Because history has never celebrated those who recorded humanity at its worst.
It has always remembered those who refused to stand by while it happened.
