Teen Times: On October 8th a massive earthquake erupted along the Indian-Pakistani border, killing nearly 80,000 people and affecting the lives of three million.
Media coverage showed miles of shattered landscape, villages buried by mudslides, bodies lying by the side of roads. Utter devastation. On October 24th, suicide bombers attacked the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad killing 27 people. Last week the US troop death toll in Iraq hit the 2,000 mark.
What do the above events have in common? Answer: I didn't care about any of them. I didn't feel even a trace of sadness, I utterly failed to rise to the occasion and join everyone else in their shock and horror. Well, actually, to say I didn't feel any emotion would be a lie. What I did feel was excited and curious, like one feels when they start a new chapter in a particularly gripping crime thriller.
What would happen next?! How would this affect the India-Pakistan standoff over Kashmir? How would the British public evaluate their country's presence in Iraq in the aftermath of the tube bombings?
These events were twists in a story taking place far, far away and they made damn good reading. I have read so many news stories and seen so much footage of black smoke billowing out of twisted buildings, it has almost ceased to be real. I fail, time after time, to be horrified by what should be horrifying news: December 26th, South-East Asia devastated by Tsunami, 170,000 dead or missing; Holly and Jessica Wells murdered by school caretaker, Ian Huntley.
I don't think I'm alone. In this information-swamped world, the world of 24-hour news, everyone is slowly being desensitised. I've got a feeling that half of the people who, while watching the news, coo "oooo, thaaat's terrible" actually don't feel even a little bit worse. I bet they're like me - they don't feel anything.
I know I sound like a cold-hearted bastard but I'm just being honest, I can't force myself to feel terrible about the latest car bomb. I'm no more cold-hearted than the mother in the apron sitting down to watch the news and stating that a murder described on the broadcast is indeed: "terrible".
What we describe as terrible, or wonderful, should be decided by what moves us in the pit of our stomachs, not by social conditioning. And I know that some people reading this article are saying "thaaat's awful" while in the back of their minds they secretly agree.
• Hugh Golden is a student at Mount Temple school in Dublin
• Submissions of 500-word articles are welcome to teentimes@irish-times.ie. Please include a phone number
