Lent(ish) – Day 5

I posted a few days ago that I’ve been thinking about conducting a social experiment about how the news media affects us.  I was on Twitter one day and everyone was talking about Lent, so I decided to put my experiment in motion and use the Lenten season to do it, so I’ve unplugged from all news broadcasts on TV, radio, and online outlets for the next 40 days.  My only source of information is whatever I glean from conversations around me and social media posts on Twitter and Facebook (just the text posts, not the videos).

Let me just say that Lent just happened to fall at the same time I’d been thinking about doing this experiment and it helped push me into actually doing it.  As I said in my first post I’m not a Lent observer.  Giving up coffee or beer or chocolate for 40 days won’t bring you closer to Christ.  If you want to give up a vice then give it up for good, but if you want to be closer to Christ then read His Word daily and practice what He preached.

Anyway, the basis for my experiment was brought about one day when after driving somewhere I realized I was very agitated.  I wasn’t agitated when I got in the car, and there was no traffic, so I started to wonder if listening to the talk radio show I heard during the drive had affected me.  I started to pay attention to my moods more closely and realized that I could definitely see how taking in the news made me feel agitated, or sad, or just plain dissolutioned with the world.  We all know that news outlets thrive on bad news.  They prey on our seemingly subconscious desire to slow down and look at the accident, and they skew their reporting to the Left or the Right.

So I decided to stop taking in all of this stuff and see what happened.  Would I become completely out of touch with the world, but be happier?

The first few days were a little hard because I’m a news junkie. I like knowing what’s going on in the world.  But I stayed on course.  Then suddenly the whole experiment was put into jeopardy when the catastrophe hit Japan.  I saw a Twitter post saying there was an 8.9 earthquake followed by a tsunami.

Now I was in trouble.  I started to grab the TV remote, justifying to myself that this was a game changing event and I really needed to know about it.  But then I stopped and realized that this would actually help my experiment.  Would I be able to gather enough info from sources around me to know what happened, or would this event go unrealized?

It’s been a few days now, and the only video I’ve seen about the disaster has been a fleeting glimpse on a TV in a restaurant that showed houses being swept away.  Just that small intake made me feel terrible.

I mean, really, does seeing the utter devastation make the experience of knowing there was a catastrophe in Japan any better?  Having your brain constantly bombarded with those images only makes you feel worse every time you replay them in your mind. 

So I have to ask myself what would be different if I watched the news or videos that people are posting on Twitter.  The answer is that my actions would be the same: I would still pray every day for Japan, and I would give to a relief fund to try and help out.  The only other thing I could do is go over there, which like 99% of us is unrealistic. The difference is that I don’t feel that heavy weight that would be caused by seeing the destruction and devastation or having every minute of a news broadcast dedicated to it rolling around in my head.  You may not realize it, but it effects you, and you don’t need it to know that there is suffering going on over there. 

So far, my experiment has been interesting.  I’ve gathered all of the information I need about world and local events just through the sources around me without the 5 thousand other stories about murders and rapes and fires and every other nasty thing the news fills their broadcasts with.  I have all of the truly relevant information I need without the rest of the crap.  I’m experiencing a better mood, and finding that I’m actually more productive not looking at the hours and hours of horrifying news coverage of the disaster.

I’ll continue to check in as my Lent(ish) experiment progresses.

Goodnight, and Good News.

I’m a pretty avid news reader.  I like to be informed about what’s going on in the world and in my community.  With my iPhone I’m able to receive a ton of information.  Here’s a “short” list of what’s on my phone: CNN, Time, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Fox, Huffington Post, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Mashable, Endgadget, WOAI (local San Antonio news), NPR, Al Jazeera, and Dilbert.  That last one is just to cheer me up after reading all that news.

The reason I look at so many different outlets is because I want to get an array of interpretations of worldly events.  I know too many people that stick to just the news service that suits their political stance, and that’s a shame because both sides skew their stories, and unfortunately it seems that most of the stories aren’t news that makes people smile either.  Actually, I find that most of the time I’m agitated after reading the news because it’s frustrating to read about the political rancor in our country that permeates just about everything we do, and the deplorable way humans treat each other all over the world.

I’ve thought about not reading the news, but I’m afraid of becoming an uninformed oaf with no idea what’s going on in the world.  But now that we’ve reached the season of Lent, I’ve decided to unplug.  I don’t normally participate in Lent because I feel it’s an empty ritual that doesn’t really prove anything.  If you want to impress me then give up that vice for life, not just 40 days.

Anyway, the only reason I’m doing this now is because a short term experiment is really what I need, and all of the stories I’ve read about Lent today gave me the idea to do it now.  So, for the next 40 days I’m going to avoid the news.  I’ve deleted all of the news apps from my phone, removed the news feeds from Twitter, and installed the Charlie Sheen filter on my home computer that is available for FireFox now.  I’m going to avoid all talk radio, and only listen to Christ-centered music, and the only book I’m going to read is my Bible.

It’ll be interesting to see the results.  Will I be able to glean all of the news I need from friendly conversations with people around me, or will I become a social black hole?  We’ll see.