On a day like Remembrance Day, when the country is supposed to be commemorating those who have served in the armed forces, don’t be surprised if you see the telltale light of dozens of smartphones at your local ceremony.
The Facebook page for Canada Remembers, maintained by the government department Veterans Affairs Canada, posted a status update on Oct. 31 that attracted quite a bit of attention.
The status read, “No tweeting, no posting, no instagraming, no social media for 11 minutes. Can you do that? On November 11th at 11:01am, let’s be #silenttoremember Canada’s Veterans.”
What this does is give social media junkies an easy out, a comforting way to equalize resisting the urge to tweet and actually honouring the country’s vets.
It points to what’s been called ‘slacktivism,’ characterized by people posting about human rights issues and violations instead of actually doing something about it, like volunteering to fix the root of the problem.
God forbid a person actually takes action, even the smallest amount, like going to a Remembrance Day ceremony or visiting a vet at a local Royal Canadian Legion branch. That would require too much work.
If we can’t be trusted to turn off our smartphones—judging by the phrase “Can you do that?” in the Facebook status—we definitely can’t be relied on to make the painstaking journey to the local cenotaph for half an hour once a year.
If something isn’t immediate in our lives, it’s human tendency to forget it and move on to the next fad.
And what’s less pressing for twenty-somethings than events that took place before we were even born? Why should we care about devastating wars that took the lives of men and women, sometimes children of 14, 15, or 16-years-of-age when it didn’t happen to us?
I could be blunt and say this behaviour is repulsive, shameful, and appalling—because it is. Instead, there’s something more important we should consider.
The fact that we—specifically the millennials—have to be reminded to stop scrolling through Facebook newsfeeds or Twitter updates for just a few short minutes says a lot about what we value, not just as a generation, but as human beings.
If we have to be reminded to pause before we snap a cenotaph selfie or put an antique Instagram filter on a photo of the 21-gun salute, we’ve failed as a generation that honours those who have sacrificed so much.
Lest we forget? Sadly, I think we’ve already forgotten.
