“Everything is Terrible.” Thats what people are saying are Twitter. This week alone, several people have even told me that they need to take an emergency break from social media because they can’t handle the stress. For a while now, it seems like all news is bad news.
Ignorance is bliss. Awareness is pain. Are there really more bad things happening today? Or are we just more aware of whats already happening? The answer is somewhere in between.
There are definitely fewer bad things happening today that in the past. If we look at the trend of history, each decade there are fewer countries having fewer wars, fewer famines, genocides, and the like. In the past, many of these tragedies largely unnoticed by the global audience. But today the power of digital media brings global events to the eyes and hands of ordinary people.
But that doesn’t mean we’re more aware. Even though the reach of the press has increased, each of still has a finite amount of attention each day. There’s only so much news (good or bad) that person can follow. The blessing of the information age is that we increasingly have a choice of what news to follow. But with choice come responsibility.
This week, being aware of the crisis at the US-Mexican border, of separating immigrant families, is unavoidable. But to be aware of the root cause behind this desperate immigration, the crisis of gang violence and wealth inequality in Central America, that takes a little bit of effort. Not a lot of effort, but some.
If you care about something, move beyond your newsfeed.