Avoiding the media: the results of a personal experiment

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Anonymous

Avoiding the media: the results of a personal experiment

#3183151 - 09/26/04 04:12 PM (22 years, 15 days ago)

For the last two years I've not once viewed a TV news broadcast, read a newspaper, or read any online mainstream news media. For the last one year I also cut out alternative media from any regular viewing. Effectively, for the past 12 months, any news and events that happened across the world I've heard only from word of mouth, either from people in person or on forums such as the Shroomery. The results so far have been in favor of my mental well-being, so I plan on continuing this for as long as I see positive results. But in order to explain the positive results, let me first explain what's happened to my 'world view.'

Some people might think it's bad idea to avoid the media, and that in doing so I'd become uninformed and ignorant in world affairs. In a way this is true, since many things had happened that I didn't hear about until weeks or sometimes months later. If there were things that took that long to reach me as a topic of conversation, there were undoubtedly countless other things that I haven't heard about at all. Per my original intentions in undergoing this experiment, I created a filter that cut out 'trivial' events and news items. By trivial I mean things that don't directly affect my life. Surely a murder is not trivial to the persons involved. However, the murder of a stranger doesn't impact my life in any way, so I deemed these types of events as distractions. The result is that I learned only about news that people deemed important enough to share in conversation. Interestingly, I would say I've got a handle on what's going on in the world, at least in regard to politics. I'm aware of continued resistance in Iraq against American troops, although I couldn't name any city where a particular battle or attack has recently happened. I'm aware of the four or five most popular candidates for the upcoming US presidential election -- I've read up on the candidates at their web sites but have barely heard any news about them. I know about the recent hurricanes hitting the Caribbean region and Florida, although I didn't hear about two of them until after they hit. Hurricanes are a pretty common thing and considering they're 2000 miles away from me, they're damn close to being in my 'distraction' category. However, they fit into the pattern that I recognized after only a couple months.

There was obviously a pattern in what news I heard about and what I didn't, and how long it took for me to find out. The things I heard about always fit into two groups: 1) an event that affected a large amount of people or 2) an event that was very unusual. Type 1 always spread much faster than type 2. These two types of events had a certain level of novelty that was absorbed into and circulated through the collective conscious, and therefore spread quickly through conversation. The nature of how I received the news also created a second filter. In addition to filtering out common, "unimportant" news stories, I could only interpret the facts as I was given by the person telling me. This potentially left out key parts of an event that were critical in understanding exactly what happened. This led me to inquire other people once I heard something I was particularly interested in. This process reversed the typical method of information gathering. Most people receive news through an active-passive method -- that is, they actively seek out a form of media and then passively absorb the information given from that media (such as sitting and watching a TV news broadcast). On the other hand, I adopted a passive-active method -- I passively absorbed information from conversation and then, if a certain event interested me, I'd actively seek out more about it from other sources.

By the way, here's an interesting tidbit. The most common talked about events I would say fall in this order: 1) weather 2) entertainment/movies 3) world events/politics 4) American events/politics 5) science/technology 6) health/medical. Maybe it's my age group (early 20s) but I found that most people were more concerned with the weather and the latest movies than what's happening politically in the world. This is a little unsettling, but the order of the last four categories isn't too surprising.

So far I mentioned two filters that were set up from this experiment, the event filter and the information filter. The third and last is what I would call the drama filter. We all know that mainstream media and even alternative media often present stories and events in a sensationalist or dramatic way, in order to hold your attention. By avoiding all first-party news sources, I was removed from the emotion and drama which they exhibited and attached to events. This allowed me to think about the news I was hearing in a more objective manner. Often when someone was relating an news story to me, I could see the echo of emotion still attached to the information, and my reaction to an event would be very different than the other person's, because I didn't receive the sensationalist aspect that the news media originally put into the event. This is my presumption here, but people seemed to mimic the emotion that the news sources attached to a story. Either that or that was simply their own reaction to the story. But considering the impact the media has on the average person, I wouldn't be surprised if the first one was true.

Finally, let me sum up the effects this experiment has had on my mind and my psyche. In general my mind feels a lot clearer, and much less cluttered with trivial information that doesn't directly affect my life. I'm fairly knowledgable about major current events without useless details. As I see it, details of events can always be looked up if needed for debate or research. I find myself less and less swayed by popular opinion also. I'm more critical of information now than I was when I watched or read the news every day. Overall the experiment was "successful," since my goal was for a more peaceful mind with less useless information floating around in it.

And if you read this whole thing, thank you! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did relating the experience.

Extras:

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