Most weekdays I check the BBC News website, to keep myself vaguely in the loop with what's happening outside of my bubble. I learned this habit by choice- I did not learn it from my parents, because my parents got their news from the TV.
Have you ever wondered at the differences between the two mediums, and what difference they make to each of our two generations, when it comes to our knowledge of the world?
Newspapers are a third gateway to this knowledge, but they seem to be increasingly replaced by the other two. A paper did not dictate what you got or when you got it like the television did, but the internet has provided the same freedom more effectively.
When my parents watch the news broadcast on the box, they are presented with a list of stories and facts from all aspects of life. The presenter begins by announcing the major headlines, and then goes on to expand on all of them. When I upload the BBC News website, I am presented with a list of the same headlines. But here comes the subtle change... No full story is fed to my brain automatically. Instead, I consider which headlines sound the most interesting, or relevant, to me, and then I open them up.
I have choice. A website user has choice within an area, and a TV viewer does not. But is the choice of the internet a healthy one? The choice is to pick which articles will be read or watched, and which will not. If you want to look at it in a positive light, you could say that time can be saved by ignoring the unimportant stories. But the reply comes, are any stories really unimportant?
Look at the big major headlines at the top of a news site. These reports often tell us about suffering, discrimination, injustice, and poverty. These stories definately matter to someone! Real people, as we often forget, are experiencing these tragedies every day. Now scroll down to the bottom of the news page, and what are the typical stories we see? About half way down the list we might have passed items important in certain areas of society- business, science and nature, regional stories. But at the very bottom you usually find the more lighthearted analysis on something about human nature, or an amusing event, or even an interactive quiz.
With my power of choice, what do I find myself so often choosing to give my time to? Usually, I am ashamed to say, I pass over the information about how a war is devastating lives, and click on "Founder of chocolate company installed chocolate swimming pool", or something equally pointless.
These ridiculous and useless tales were probably first added to the end of television news to lift any depressing tone set by the rest of the program. But when the internet user is given control, it presents the same temptation that a child gets at dinner- to say "I'm full, but I can manage desert!"
Like the rest of technology, the problem is not the machine; it is the human. My greed for cheap entertainment often has more hold on my heart than my care for a fellow human in distress. My priorities need fixing, and I must fight myself each day to do this.
See another post about Choice...
Image source: http://www.soton.ac.uk/ris/news/index.shtml
