With so much news and media being thrown in our faces each day, it is certainly no small wonder that few can keep up with absolutely everything going on in the world.
Giving up and choosing to be ignorant of all news and media and general, however, is downright shameful.
The information-driven age that we live in is both a blessing and a burden. Never before have human beings had so much access to such a breadth of information.
Much has been said about how the advent of the internet has brought a myriad of opportunities to the masses, and how resources will only continue to grow and become applicable to more facets of our lives.
Jonah Baker
Social media has done wonders to connect people and causes with those opportunities. But, for some, the time-sucking qualities of the internet and the bastions of negativity within social media platforms outweigh the informative sides of each.
A simple “stop watching the news” Google search will produce a plethora of click-bait results, listing off reasons as to why constant exposure to the media can cause depression, inhibit creativity and slow productivity.
I am not going to pretend like each of these claims are ludicrous, and I am willing to admit that they have merit. If a person is to make the conscious choice of consuming news, they are choosing to do so in place of some other task. For example, the recent cluster of hurricanes in and around the Gulf of Mexico has exposed me to an uncomfortable amount of devastation and human suffering.
All of these effects are natural byproducts of keeping up with current events and becoming an informed citizen. However, by and large, they are not an excuse for cognizant ignorance.
When one tunes out of a society created through the discovery of and, more importantly, the dispersing of information, they do a disservice to everyone else.
It is a given that some information will be difficult, even painful to receive at times. This does not mean that a member of society should be given a free pass when they willingly choose the bliss of ignorance over reality. Prior to voting, expressing an opinion or making conversation about any topic, one must be informed. Since most conversations (inside or outside of social media) are centered upon current events, it is that much more important to follow the news and be informed.
A good example of the effects of uninformed and willfully ignorant people is the immediate response to Brexit. Per a Washington Post article released immediately after the referendum, there were massive spikes in online searches looking for information regarding what the European Union actually was, and what it meant for the United Kingdom to leave it.
That curiosity would have been encouraging, had it not come after the referendum had passed and Great Britain had made the momentous decision to leave the EU. This regret was so strong it inspired a petition to redo the referendum that garnered more than three million signees within six days of the vote to leave. Had the voters been as informed as they should had been, such regret might not have happened.
In order for the voting populace to remain in control of their own sovereignty, we have to prove that we actually care enough to be informed. We cannot simply tune out information about the news around us and hope that everything goes OK or that somebody else will make the right decision for us. Authoritarian governments are born from this mindset.
So, the members of our society face a very important choice. Each of us can choose to stay updated with current events through the news, social media, or whatever platform we choose as long as it keeps us informed. Or, we can ignore everyone and everything else and insulate our little bubbles from bad news and unseemly topics.
Staying informed creates a knowledgeable and functioning democratic society. Tuning out the rest of the world results in no real society at all.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected]