So I know I'm not the first person to say this, but this is definitely is one of the biggest things plaguing people nowadays. Obvious things worsening this is social media (especially twitter) and the mainstream media sensationalizing everything. To be clear, I'm not saying that you shouldn't make yourself aware of what's going on. However, this obsessing over everything is killing us. Even before COVID, this was a big problem (one guy in the office said that he literally spent all day Sunday watching all the networks for political coverage). Look at the headlines nowadays and what would you think? Coronavirus is going to kill billions and we will never have the same way of life ever again. Either Trump is gonna turn the US into a fascist dictatorship or Biden is gonna unleash full blown communism. A race war is gonna burn down all our cities and suburbs. China is gonna nuke is. On and on and on . . .
The fact is that A) We're always going to have conflicts/disasters/politicians we don't like. This is a fact of life that isn't going away. If you were born in the 90's, you witnessed 9/11, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and the 08/09 financial crisis, just to name some things off the top of my head. Bad thing happen; we get through them and move on. B) Despite everything that is going on right now, for most people, this is without a doubt the best time to be born in terms of having control of your life.
Seriously, the hours that people spend pouring into Fox/CNN or reading garbage on Twitter is not productive towards life; "keeping myself informed" is just a way of wasting time and doing nothing that people have invented to give themselves an excuse to not move forward. 5 minutes on google news browsing headlines is all you need. Put that energy into literally anything else; study hard to get a good gpa, put in work to prepare for those interviews, learn new skills that you can use to get a better job, look into starting a business, find a sport you like to play or lift weights, hang out with your friends or join a club to get new ones. When people fix a lot of the things wrong with their own lives, they come to realize how many of the things in the news really don't matter.
Only 55.7% of eligible voters voted in 2016. Turnout in non-presidential years is even worse. People should be more engaged, not less.
You are correct in that watching cable news or scrolling twitter does not equate to either engagement or enlightenment, but do not equate cable news hyperbole with national and world affairs. Ignorance in the face of world events is also not helpful in any way, nor does it automatically mean you have more time to work out or start a business.
A good portion of those who didn't vote were disillusioned by pop culture that turned Trump and Clinton into evil charicatures of themselves.
I'd also argue that plenty of people are only tuning in to the news for the entertainment value of getting riled up over the coming apocalypse. When they are asked to do something simple but boring like drive 15 minutes to go vote, they can't be bothered. These people are "engaged" but not in any meaningful way.
I wonder what the voter turnout rate is for the "so-called" woke college kids and Q-anon believers.
We know college kid turnout is always low.
We can only hope that QAnon turnout is low.
Amen.
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." --Seneca
People cause themselves undue tension by constantly thinking about the worst things going on in the world. These things are sensationalized by the media b/c, "if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't read."
Some ppl live in this distorted depiction of life. All they have to do is take a walk outside to find that indeed, the sky is not falling.
"All of men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." --Blaise Pascal
Yes, it's important to stay educated. But it's very easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of today's media that travels at a million miles per hour and doesn't give the facts due consideration. Most mainstream media today is designed to stir emotion and cause divide (b/c that's what makes $$$$), not promote rational discourse. There are infinitely better ways to spend time than scrolling thru popular media. It's popular for a reason, it's sensationalized.
If you take a moment to watch any political debates of the past vs political debates today, you will see the exact problem OP describes manifest in the way ppl conduct themselves.
I think engagement is important. Unfortunately, people engage through sensationalized media and not scholarly resource. Maybe the education system is the problem.
I just came reading that. glad I'm not the only one who thinks like this.
I used to not be like that, before I was 30 I would watch bloomberg 12 hours a day, listen to news radio to and from work/gym, read news all the time, and thought I was helping myself. been on a news diet for a couple years now and nothing's changed for the negative. I do about 10 minutes of reading in the morning, another 20-30 of local news during breakfast, and then more during earnings season.
getting completely off social media has helped too (don't hold me to this, only been 2 months so far). tons of positives coming out of 2020 so far, and I think a media diet has helped me tremendously
Starting today, I’m going to try this. I just deleted all social media apps and Reddit
Reddit is the worst. Imo if you stay on niche subs and avoid the front page it is somewhat bearable. Im only subscribed to r/rowing and r/watches for example
And keeping WSO?
I've lived in various parts of the world before coming to the US for college and work. One thing I've noticed is that compared to other cultures I've experienced, Americans seem to have a habit of minding other peoples' businesses (ok it's hard to word this right but I don't mean it in a bad way). I've just always been amazed at how some people can literally be enraged about some news/event happening all the way on the other side of the globe even when it does not affect their own lives. Is it compassion, or is it indignance that not everything in the world abides by their values?
Also, I've never seen people care as much about politics until I came to America. Like holy shit, the amount of fervor that college students have for politics is almost incomprehensible for me. Yes I'm sure they have their reasons and I haven't walked the same path as them. Purely an observation. On one hand it's refreshing to see so many people caring about higher level ideologies rather than living a sheltered life, but on the other hand it's also strange to see how people can worry about grand ideologies before sorting their own lives out.
Karens are definitely not REPE
It's a lot more about people pretending to care about an ideology that someone told them was good, rather than voting/knowing what it is about.
Ask an average liberal arts kid about socialism, and they will tell you how great it is without knowing the core definition of socialism.
Sir, This Is A Wendy's
Old memes are not REPE
This. Your mind is the most important resource you have. It has limited capacity - and yet day in and day out people fill it up with these mushed sensationalized shit. They rationalize it as "being aware".
The first step of recovering is admitting you have a problem. I am guilty as charged and am trying to be more mindful whenever I caught myself following unnecessary news.
Thanks for this thread.
Agree. Well said
It surprises me that seemingly so many people fail to realize that the hysteria of the news cycle has become completely disconnected from reality. It's shocking how quickly the discourse of an entire nation has come to be dominated by fringe minorities on either side - today the only public conversation happening is between the loudest, angriest people, and everyone else secretly agrees behind closed doors that what is going on is insane. I long for the days when these delusional clowns didn't have a platform - most of these people are just addicted to the feeling of being apart of some noble social movement because they are otherwise unfulfilled in their personal lives. Social media plays a huge part, but I think probably the least appreciated aspect of all of this is the disintermediation of traditional news sources by the internet.
For many decades The New York Times, Fox News, CNN, every major media outlet enjoyed a total monopoly on news reporting in this country, and it was very lucrative. The family TV was the only window into the American home, and with virtually zero competition. Google old television ratings - at peak most nights the top cable news stations will get ~4 million viewers - in the 1960s it was 40 million. Then came the internet and social media, and suddenly these news organizations found themselves competing for people's attention, and losing. How does one compete with a smartphone specifically designed to keep the human brain addicted? The real news is nuanced, and nuance is boring, compared to my timeline of videos that get me fired up about XYZ issue that cuts out all the boring facts and gets straight to confirming my grievances about XYZ people. Let's not forget that journalism is a blue collar job - these guys aren't rolling in it save for the highest up anchors and TV personalities. If you're a writer at CNN, suddenly your job paying $45k per year feeding your family depended on you getting clicks, and nobody wants to read a boring article about what really happened - people want to be mad, so you better write something that gets them mad enough to click. In the same way that MTV's diverse lineup of interesting programs in the late 90s have been co-opted by 8 hours back to back of super fat people or catfish - the burning dumpster fire programs that you can't look away from - the same is happening to the news. When they had a monopoly on the American household the media companies could afford to report with an ounce of journalistic integrity, but now they're hemorraghing money and competing with facebook and tiktok, and the only thing that will keep people clicking is an outrage article about that politician you hate. "AOC had THIS to say when TRUMP called her a SOCIALIST!". We are doomed.
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