San Bernardino live

With today's chaos (still unresolved) in San Bernardino it seems incredible to someone of my generation, living half a world away, just how connected we all can be to unfolding events - especially those in other developed nations. With an appropriate app some random guy (yours truly) in a small town south of Auckland can follow rolling LA news coverage direct on ABC7 in real time on their home TV screen.

Even for those of us who are 'news junkies' there seems a fine line between taking the pulse of a live event and simple voyeurism. On November 13 the world was likewise able to follow the terrible events in Paris on France 24, unfiltered by the parochialism of national news sources.

The world is in so many ways a smaller place than it has ever been before. Take your pick of international news channels that are free-to-air to anyone with some fairly minimal technology. It blows my mind to think that youngsters growing up today will take all of this for granted.

We can only hope that the current situation will be brought to the best possible conclusion as soon as possible.