When growing up in the 80’s and 90’s of the last century, life was easy, simple and one dimensional. At least in my perception it was. We had one Dutch News channel, we had the BBC, German ZDF and French RTBF. The news we watched was neutral and objective, at least we thought it was. The gravity of the shocking images was softened as to protect us from the cruelty of war. The world was simple; the bad guys were wearing black, and the good guys were in white. Everybody feared and hated the Russians, and the Americans were the modern knights in shining armour, protecting democracy and freedom in general. This was the world that was created for us, and we felt safe and comfortable. We knew it wasn’t real, but we had no reason or means to explore otherwise. How different is our world nowadays. But is it better?
We have access to all news around the world. A dog giving birth to a five-legged pup in Kazakhstan, will be in my newsfeed 15 minutes later; I know that the real-time temperature in Mutina, Russia, wherever the hell that is, is -19 degrees. I also know that the COVID virus started in Wuhan in 2019, but be honest; had you ever heard of Wuhan, the fourth largest city in China, prior to this world changing event? We are bombarded by news, left, right and centre and 24/7. We hear and read stories about events and places that would never have reached us 30 years ago. Why is that? First of all, the mainstream media didn’t have the access to all the news we have nowadays and next to that it’s their news editing team that decided what was newsworthy and what not. On top of this they would edit it in such a way that their mixed audience of all ages would be able to receive and process it without being shocked or appalled. And to be fair our virgin minds in those days would be easily shocked! Today it would take a lot more to shock us. Based on the political climate in a country, there would be an extra element in the editing mix. I have no clue why I am telling you this in the past tense, as this is actually how it still works in every country.
But there is something different that changed the playing field! Social media has changed all of this. Next to having multiple sources of news, we can also tap into news on an individual level. I can filter and access everything that I want to know about my favourite football team or the American elections whenever I want and to which ever detail level, I want it. Nobody filtering this for me, as I can see everything minutes after it happened with all the gruesome raw reality.
Is it better though? This new reality creates two new problems. The first one is that even though I have access to every picture or video clip, it may have been edited already. It could even be deep fake! Can you believe that they can make Putin sing “I did it my way” and it looks 100% real! Who comes up with stuff like that? It challenges everything we see or hear. In the overflow of information, it is very hard to determine what is real and what is fake. So, are we better of having mainstream media professionals making that judgement call and splitting fake news from real news? Not sure about that as the political agenda stands in the way of objective news as well.
The second problem that has been created by this tsunami of news is the effect that it has one our mental health. Too much information, especially about negative events, could make a person think that the world is an even worse place than they thought, as all these awful images are out of their circle of influence, but they do affect you.
So, in conclusion, I think it is best that you become your own news editor. Mix the reality of this world up with some fun stuff as well and don’t take it too seriously, after all there is not much you can do about it. And in case it is still too much for you, just de-activate, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn. You will not miss a lot as the world will keep on turning!
