10
votes
How the news took over reality: Is engagement with current affairs key to being a good citizen? Or could an endless torrent of notifications be harming democracy as well as our wellbeing?
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- Title
- How the news took over reality
- Authors
- Oliver Burkeman
- Published
- May 3 2019
A book I picked up recently is incredibly relevant to the subject: McLuhan's Understanding Media. In it, he defines media as an extension of our senses. He also speaks of how the introduction of a new media forever affects our relationship with "older" media (note that both the content and the means of communication are "media" to McLuhan).
So our relationship with news was forever changed when the first 24 hour news channel was created. Also forever changed when the first news site showed up on the internet. Again forever changed when news aggregators were created, and changed again when "content aggregators" like Twitter and Facebook appeared on the scene.
Personally, I started to limit my exposure to news and I think it's helped me be happier on a day-to-day basis. I don't know if it's better or worse for society, but I'd rather continue limiting my access.
That analysis of how media functions is persuasive.
I think getting of the ride of the neverending news cycle is a step I'd encourage everyone to take.
I still think it's imperative for society, for oneself and living a full life to be involved in local civics. That essentially means paying attention to local events in ways that require following news regularly. Not the "someone said x" news, but actual things happening, changes in society, descriptions of how things are run.
I'm very scared especially about young people who tune out not just the meaningless news cycle, but essentially are disconnected from everything that's happening around them. Sure that ignorance is bliss, but on a societal, but also the individual level, the cost is high. Society matters in all our lives, in large dollar amounts and less fungible ways that might be even more impactful to our lives.