Originally published August 28, 2011 at 8:22 p.m., updated August 28, 2011 at 8:22 p.m.
Quick, think about the news headlines of the summer. We have a new country: the Republic of South Sudan; the GOP battle for the Republican Presidential nomination has begun in earnest; our military involvement in Libya has intensified. These events continue to capture our attention through the media, even though at times we may attempt to shut them out.
Today, more than ever, we can specifically choose the news reports we follow daily. Flipping through a newspaper or magazine, we can look over anything we’re not interested in and read more about what we are. Television shows and news channels can be easily streamed over the web, and we have complete control over what we want to watch. Tiny blurbs on social media tempt us into clicking attached links to read more. In the end, we have the power to spend our time specifically on whatever we wish.
This barrage of blurbs is increasingly becoming a source of entertainment. The subjects of these news stories can at times seem to exist as pure sideshows, but we forget very easily that these landmark events affect the lives of others much more than we realize.
A five-minute reading about the new same-sex marriage law in New York may be pleasant and enlightening, but its ramifications for couples who have lived in the state for years and can now marry the love of their lives are profound.
Images of famine in Somalia may be shocking and unpleasant, but it’s not like images can ever be forced upon anyone. Just as easily as the image is available, it is just as easy to click out of it and immediately forget about its impact.
Elders and peers constantly remind us to “take a walk in another person’s shoes” when we are quick to make judgmental statements about others with a limited amount of knowledge at our disposal. I couldn’t even count the number of people I saw on social media making snap judgments about their approval or disapproval of the debt limit deal (or, with even less sensitivity, the Casey Anthony trial), even though they knew a bare minimum about the in’s and out’s of these events and were possibly even pre-disposed to an opinion because of biased “news” anchors.
We are invited to make these judgments, though, because of how the news is normally fed to us without us realizing its impact. By allowing ourselves access to more news, less of our time may be devoted to reading through each event one-by-one. This may lead to an even greater misunderstanding of the issues at large. One way to overcome any sort of these incorrect assumptions is to open up our awareness to the fact that there is no simple way of understanding everything the media is offering us.
Through that awareness, as I am discovering today, there was never really a moment when not much was “going on.” All that changes is our realization that we can constantly further our understanding of the world and all the complex events that happen on it.
After that, the summer seems practically mild in comparison.
—Brett Salsbury is a senior in English, History of Art, and Global and International Studies from Chapman.
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Comments
Salsbury: A blurb is not enough
As someone who has been around a little bit I can say that attention spans are getting shorter. Back in the old days I guy had to stand next to the TV to channel surf. He would change the channel, wait about 10-15 seconds to see what was on, and then on to the new channel. To check the whole dial took about a minute. We only had about five channels in those days. Today a guy spends about 1.3 seconds per channel (myself included) and we can run the 200 channels in a couple of minutes. We automatically go right by the Shopping Channel (unless it is sex toy night) and Soap channels to save time.
Even in the classroom we are pushed to go faster and spend less time with the subject. We now skim books instead of read them. I would sit still for a hour at a time and read a hundred pages (I read really fast or used to). Now we hit the highlights.
We have so much information available on the Internet we can't spend any real time with one thing (porn not included) and if we did spend so much time on the computer then we have a problem.
We still have the capability to adjust. I had a friend who sit on a jury or a capital murder trial a couple of years ago. She looked at the Kasey Anthony trial and said a week ahead of time that the evidence was not there. Same thing for other things in our lives. My thing is politics and I do spend hours keeping up with all the little events. I guess some people can discuss football for hours but, I have to point out that, the Chiefs can't raise your taxes and the Royals can't declare war (that would require an offense).
It is up to each of us whether or not we succumb to the times. Like yoga or meditation we just have to take the time.
Salsbury: A blurb is not enough
Mister Salsbury, I feel you're overgeneralizing about how people disseminate information. Many pour rigorously over any data they can find to an intimate level, about as much as those who consign themselves to the "blurbs" of which you speak.
You are right in that we have more access to information than ever before, but I feel that access has more positives that this article didn't mention. In the past, America was held in the grip of yellow journalism - the Spanish-American War comes to mind. The "blurb" culture then is not constrained to Generation Y - historian Michael Roberts said that, "Newspaper reporters and readers of the 1890s were much less concerned with distinguishing among fact-based reporting, opinion, and literature" (to pull from Wikipedia). I grow tired of this false nostalgia fostered by some (such as the commenter above) that insinuates that modern times are somehow inferior to earlier eras, just as tired as I am when I hear the wonders of modern times trumpeted over those "darker, savager eras." Please. Nothing is new under the sun. But I digress.
What I'm saying is, I'm confused by this article's thesis. That our times should read more? That's a generalization, and an inaccurate one at that. That our times should care more about the world? Humanity has never cared to begin with and it's not about to start caring more - how else can you explain colonialism, slavery, genocide, persecution? What exactly, Mr Salsbury, is your call to action?
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