Editorial: Darker side of phone snap mania

You can't go anywhere today without seeing someone taking photos or videos with their phones. Photo / monkeybusinessimages

Never mind about Big Brother watching you, these days everyone is watching everyone, recording everyone and sharing it for the world to see.

You can't go anywhere today - restaurants, playgrounds, the library, anywhere, work or play - without seeing someone taking photos or videos with their phones.

Most are harmless family snaps that may or may not be shared within the family group.

Others go viral with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world watching them.

Take the girl in the short blue dress and impossibly high heels at the Melbourne Cup.

Some stranger videoed her horribly drunk, falling down, hitting, pushing and abusing people.

Yes she shouldn't have got herself into that state but imagine her shame as footage of her stupidity was shared over and over. I felt for the young woman.

There are instances when capturing something or someone on phones has helped police solve crimes.

However, the video doing the rounds at the moment from the Napier KFC is another. Police were videoed arresting a man in the carpark. An officer was shown allegedly throwing a punch. Viewers didn't see the beginning of the altercation so we don't know what happened before. Taken out of context images like this can cause emotions to run riot. That's the trouble with seeing just one side of the story.

So next time you whip out your phone to video some random incident imagine how you would feel if you were suddenly the star attraction on social media.