The bombardment of visual images in contemporary society has the effect of making people less able to focus clearly and extensively on a single issue over a long period of time.

I completely agree with this statement that in these times, with so many things going around, people are not able to focus clearly on a single issue over a long period of time. There are many reasons for this.

Instant communication systems bombard people with many issues at the same time. The transmission time of news is very less in the contemporary society. Before a person focuses on one piece of news, he gets another piece of news. Televisions and computers play an important role in delivering news to people. The public gets credible, current information with commentary from news analysts along with the images. Images with the strong commentary attract people and they keep on listening all kinds of news and fail to make up their mind. Instantaneous news makes people react faster and then forget faster. The increased availability of open source real-time news information makes them forget the earlier news.

With advanced technology, there are so many channels that it is difficult for a person to stick to one channel or only one source of information. In the past, there was no TV, Internet or phones. Hence, people used to depend on the print media or radio systems to get the news of other cities and countries. That too was not instant and with no visual presentations. People had to imagine things on their own. They used to have discussions on the more important issues. Hence, the issues were there in people’s minds for longer periods.

There are many social, political, and environmental issues that need people’s attention. However, in these modern times, common people are very busy with their own lives. They do not have time to ponder over a single issue. People are usually interested in issues that affect their lives, their daily day-to-day needs. The competition in their lives is so tough that they have to work hard for their livelihood, so there is no question of focusing on any one issue for very long. There are so many issues to deal with that one cannot concentrate on one. Moreover, there is a bombardment of visual images in print and electronic media whenever something happens. It adds to the confusion. While seeing all these images, it becomes difficult to differentiate between the important and the common issues. Every small issue is covered with so many details that sometimes it seems more important. There are so many gory pictures that people get insensitive towards them.

However, we cannot ignore the importance of visual images in our life. These images in media make us more aware of our surroundings, our country, world, and even space. Media has made our world smaller and we come to know everything about the happenings in the other countries within minutes. Hence, although the visual images do not allow us to concentrate on one issue, they play an important role in our lives.

In sum, we can say that it is true that due to the bombardment of visual images, people are less able to concentrate on any single issue for longer period. However, if the electronic and print media filter their information and give more importance to useful news, then it will be easier for common people to focus their attention on main issues.