In what ways do you think media is affecting society.

Packerjohn said:
I watch less and less media as time goes by. What do I care about Taylor Swift and whether she is or is not coming to Canada? Absolutely nothing! Same thing about all those none stop Pride Parades, political problems of Mr. Trump and digging up 130 year old graves. I prefer playing my guitar, going outside for daily walks and going on short vacations. It's good for the body and good for the mind!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/taylor-swift-toronto-concerts-1.6931346
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Sounds like you've got a winning formula there P.J.
 

Gaer said:
@bobcat48, Don't know about the media.
I think a strong mind is not affected by outside phenomena
but young minds or minds with incomplete vision should be protected
from inappropriate distress.

I seek out your questions because they are generally quite fascinating!
You are a wonderful addition to the forum. Thanks.
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Agreed, and thank you for the vote. You are most kind.
 
bobcat48 said:
Yes, perhaps there is a significant mismatch between how we view ourselves, and the reality of who we are. We may want to see ourselves as a positive person, but we gravitate towards negative stuff, and we may want to see ourselves as an objective and open-minded individual, but we feed ourself biased viewpoints. It's a conundrum.
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It has been written about that the people like to follow news sources that are geared to a negative bias because of our survival instincts. In the ancient times, those who were tuned into whether or not a lion was around the corner survived better than those who did not care. Psychologists have been trying to see if the news can offer more positive topics, but it has been an uphill battle.
 

I personally do not watch news at all. I used to, especially during the Covid years, but over time, found it was stressing me out. I focus on what is good for me, and being creative is the result. Unleashing that energy that was sapped from the news, frees my creativity (poetry, music, painting, writing, etc.)

Edited: I do check Facebook daily for communication with family and friends, but avoid the news on there.
 
I have swiftly come to the conclusion that new media, as in Social Media with arbitrary limits of numbers of characters etc., is itself having a deleterious effect on attention spans. Not that everyone should read something longer than 4000 characters (Twitter), but the disdain it creates is way out of proportion to the issue at hand.

I think there's a whole lot of angst in people today, and they're looking for any way to let it out.

bobcat48 said:
Yes, I have seen that very same thing. Someone could seem so normal in all other respects, and well grounded, and yet believe outlandish things with no evidence to support the belief. It's a head scratcher.
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You're not going to tell me the Earth isn't flat, are you!!?!?!?! :D
 
palides2021 said:
I personally do not watch news at all. I used to, especially during the Covid years, but over time, found it was stressing me out. I focus on what is good for me, and being creative is the result. Unleashing that energy that was sapped from the news, frees my creativity (poetry, music, painting, writing, etc.)

Edited: I do check Facebook daily for communication with family and friends, but avoid the news on there.
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Agreed. I quit watching TV altogether over two months ago, and I don't feel any worse off for it. Personally, I would rather spend time here. It's more like a family. Sometimes dysfunctional, but interesting to get so many views on so many topics. We're a hoot !
 
VaughanJB said:
I have swiftly come to the conclusion that new media, as in Social Media with arbitrary limits of numbers of characters etc., is itself having a deleterious effect on attention spans. Not that everyone should read something longer than 4000 characters (Twitter), but the disdain it creates is way out of proportion to the issue at hand.

I think there's a whole lot of angst in people today, and they're looking for any way to let it out.



You're not going to tell me the Earth isn't flat, are you!!?!?!?! :D
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No, you can relax. It's definitely flat. Every night we just get flipped over to the dark side with a giant spatula.
 
VaughanJB said:
:D.

Coincidently, I have a new spatula being delivered tomorrow! No, really! Tired of burning my fingers taking things out of my air fryer.
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Well, there you go. You see, if we lived on a round earth, the air fryer would just tip sideways when we rotated. However, since we get flipped over with the spatula, it's never tilted. You get flipped over with it, so it always appears level. The round earth is just an illusion. I watched The God's Must Be Crazy, and I saw the Kalahari tribesman throw the coke bottle off the edge, so it has to be true.
 
I believe that what I said before stands as truths. Nothing you hear today is the truth. Its all a big lie. Haha
 
Packerjohn said:
I watch less and less media as time goes by. What do I care about Taylor Swift and whether she is or is not coming to Canada? Absolutely nothing! Same thing about all those none stop Pride Parades, political problems of Mr. Trump and digging up 130 year old graves. I prefer playing my guitar, going outside for daily walks and going on short vacations. It's good for the body and good for the mind!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/taylor-swift-toronto-concerts-1.6931346
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I would say similar. Strangely though, I seem to be interested in 130 year old graves, and older, and much older.
 
VaughanJB said:
:D

Coincidently, I have a new spatula being delivered tomorrow! No, really! Tired of burning my fingers taking things out of my air fryer.
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Good thinking. Let me write that down, as I can now see that I need to get one too. I wouldn't want to forget by tomorrow or over the weekend, especially since my mind is often occupied with too many other things.
 
We need to get information from somewhere. So saying you don't listen to the 'Right' or 'Left' media cuts you off from actual information that is used to form opinions.
Denzel Washington said it best, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed."
Once you follow certain types of media, you figure out the way they manipulate the factual information.
I like CSPAN, you hear it right from the politicians mouth.
I took a journalism class put on by a local newspaper. It was very shocking how even in print they control the narrative.
1) If its a political piece, never say the party affiliation if the news is bad and the newspaper leans towards that party
2) Information you want to bury, put it past the 3rd paragraph, most people don't get that far, even less read the whole article.
3) If the political news 'slanders' (I use the term loosely), It goes 'above the fold'. Above the fold is where the prime real estate is in newspapers
4) When important information is inaccurate and has 'influence', make the correction in a smaller section further back.

I once asked a newspaper editor a question about his readership at a cookout I was hosting. The question was, "why didn't he report complete news to his readership?" His response was, "he write based on the intelligence of his readers". Sad, very sad.

Sad, but true.
 
Sippican said:
We need to get information from somewhere. So saying you don't listen to the 'Right' or 'Left' media cuts you off from actual information that is used to form opinions.
Denzel Washington said it best, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed."
Once you follow certain types of media, you figure out the way they manipulate the factual information.
I like CSPAN, you hear it right from the politicians mouth.
I took a journalism class put on by a local newspaper. It was very shocking how even in print they control the narrative.
1) If its a political piece, never say the party affiliation if the news is bad and the newspaper leans towards that party
2) Information you want to bury, put it past the 3rd paragraph, most people don't get that far, even less read the whole article.
3) If the political news 'slanders' (I use the term loosely), It goes 'above the fold'. Above the fold is where the prime real estate is in newspapers
4) When important information is inaccurate and has 'influence', make the correction in a smaller section further back.

I once asked a newspaper editor a question about his readership at a cookout I was hosting. The question was, "why didn't he report complete news to his readership?" His response was, "he write based on the intelligence of his readers". Sad, very sad.

Sad, but true.
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That's why I prefer being a skeptic. Always seek the truth, but doubt those who claim to know it.
 
bobcat48 said:
Well, there you go. You see, if we lived on a round earth, the air fryer would just tip sideways when we rotated. However, since we get flipped over with the spatula, it's never tilted. You get flipped over with it, so it always appears level. The round earth is just an illusion. I watched The God's Must Be Crazy, and I saw the Kalahari tribesman throw the coke bottle off the edge, so it has to be true.
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I loved that movie!
 
Sippican said:
We need to get information from somewhere. So saying you don't listen to the 'Right' or 'Left' media cuts you off from actual information that is used to form opinions.
Denzel Washington said it best, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed."
Once you follow certain types of media, you figure out the way they manipulate the factual information.
I like CSPAN, you hear it right from the politicians mouth.
I took a journalism class put on by a local newspaper. It was very shocking how even in print they control the narrative.
1) If its a political piece, never say the party affiliation if the news is bad and the newspaper leans towards that party
2) Information you want to bury, put it past the 3rd paragraph, most people don't get that far, even less read the whole article.
3) If the political news 'slanders' (I use the term loosely), It goes 'above the fold'. Above the fold is where the prime real estate is in newspapers
4) When important information is inaccurate and has 'influence', make the correction in a smaller section further back.

I once asked a newspaper editor a question about his readership at a cookout I was hosting. The question was, "why didn't he report complete news to his readership?" His response was, "he write based on the intelligence of his readers". Sad, very sad.

Sad, but true.
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This is very interesting what you said about the "print" controlling the narrative! I sort of guessed something like that was happening, but to teach it in a journalism class makes it more authentic.
 
bobcat48 said:
We've all heard the expression "You are what you eat", which seems to be true with physical food as well as mental. Also, like junk food establishments everywhere, so it seems to be with the media. How careful are we about what is being selected for input, or are we at all. If you put a sponge into dirty water, guess what it absorbs. Sometimes our mind is treated like a septic tank digesting all the crap that goes in.

Does the gatekeeper just give up because it is hopeless to filter it all? Do we have a mental image of the person we desire to be, and does that match what is going in? Approximately 90% of the news is negative, and so many of us want to be positive people, but we watch it anyway, even though most of it we have no control over anyway. So just wondering in what ways do you think all the information we consume on a daily basis is affecting society?
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How careful am I regarding news ‘input’ I receive? I don’t think I consciously came up with a strategy. In my early twenties, I used to say most of what “we” read in newspapers or watch on the news we forget with the hour, so I mostly stopped reading newspapers. I would still watch the news, then later came to the conclusion that I’m sitting in front of the TV waiting for something that might interest me. I suppose I then slowly weaned myself away from the TV.

Since the late 90’s I go online for news, selecting what I want to read. It seems far more efficient that way. If I’m reading a news article that I think has too much bias, too much opinion, or speculation, I generally get bored with it, so stop reading.

If there is a news article that really interests me, then I will cross reference it with similar articles by other news agencies. Again, I didn’t really see it as a strategy of mine, as such, it’s just something I do.

As for a gatekeeper in my head, it’s not something I really thought about until mentioned here. Maybe my ‘gatekeeper’ was filtering subconsciously? My ‘gatekeeper’ doesn’t feel particularly overwhelmed.

I don’t think my self-image necessarily aligns with the news or information I consume. They seem separate entities to me. Maybe an observer of me might say something different, I don’t know.

You mention most of the news being negative, yet we want to be positive. I would say that any sense of being positive or negative within me doesn’t usually come from the news, it comes from somewhere else.

Regarding the information we consume and whether it’s affecting society, I would say yes it probably is, but to what degree I would say is very open to debate. I’m not entirely convinced we can fully get a handle on it, or at least at the moment, as there seems to me to be a huge amount of variables to consider. And how those variables might interact and influence each other. A bit like trying to understand global weather as a whole, and how one area of the globe and its variables affects another area.
 
Magna-Carta said:
How careful am I regarding news ‘input’ I receive? I don’t think I consciously came up with a strategy. In my early twenties, I used to say most of what “we” read in newspapers or watch on the news we forget with the hour, so I mostly stopped reading newspapers. I would still watch the news, then later came to the conclusion that I’m sitting in front of the TV waiting for something that might interest me. I suppose I then slowly weaned myself away from the TV.

Since the late 90’s I go online for news, selecting what I want to read. It seems far more efficient that way. If I’m reading a news article that I think has too much bias, too much opinion, or speculation, I generally get bored with it, so stop reading.

If there is a news article that really interests me, then I will cross reference it with similar articles by other news agencies. Again, I didn’t really see it as a strategy of mine, as such, it’s just something I do.

As for a gatekeeper in my head, it’s not something I really thought about until mentioned here. Maybe my ‘gatekeeper’ was filtering subconsciously? My ‘gatekeeper’ doesn’t feel particularly overwhelmed.

I don’t think my self-image necessarily aligns with the news or information I consume. They seem separate entities to me. Maybe an observer of me might say something different, I don’t know.

You mention most of the news being negative, yet we want to be positive. I would say that any sense of being positive or negative within me doesn’t usually come from the news, it comes from somewhere else.

Regarding the information we consume and whether it’s affecting society, I would say yes it probably is, but to what degree I would say is very open to debate. I’m not entirely convinced we can fully get a handle on it, or at least at the moment, as there seems to me to be a huge amount of variables to consider. And how those variables might interact and influence each other. A bit like trying to understand global weather as a whole, and how one area of the globe and its variables affects another area.
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You seem like a very independent thinker that is not easily led by media. You seem to formulate opinions on what makes sense to you after doing fair research. That, to me, is a winning strategy.
 
bobcat48 said:
You seem like a very independent thinker that is not easily led by media. You seem to formulate opinions on what makes sense to you after doing fair research. That, to me, is a winning strategy.
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I seem to do that with most things in life. I do occasionally trip up though. Which would sometimes be with new things or new types of experiences that come my way. I seem to 'tune' myself as I go along. But maybe we all do? No, I'll correct myself there, maybe most of us do.

I might make some mistakes due to the wrong or incomplete tuning, so then re-tune.

UPDATE: You mention 'independent thinker'. Made me think of when I asked my mum to buy me a bible. I think I was 9 at the time? My mum then bought me one. It was bigger than I was used to seeing around. Obviously read the Old Testament first. Thought it quite interesting, but quickly decided it was a work of fiction, or however my 9 year old mind would have described it. A book of stories; something not to be believed. Or at least in my mind.

After reading it I still thought it was 'interesting' though. I wouldn't dismiss it.
 
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Magna-Carta said:
I seem to do that with most things in life. I do occasionally trip up though. Which would sometimes be with new things or new types of experiences that come my way. I seem to 'tune' myself as I go along. But maybe we all do? No, I'll correct myself there, maybe most of us do.

I might make some mistakes due to the wrong or incomplete tuning, so then re-tune.

UPDATE: You mention 'independent thinker'. Made me think of when I asked my mum to buy me a bible. I think I was 9 at the time? My mum then bought me one. It was bigger than I was used to seeing around. Obviously read the Old Testament first. Thought it quite interesting, but quickly decided it was a work of fiction, or however my 9 year old mind would have described it. A book of stories; something not to be believed. Or at least in my mind.

After reading it I still thought it was 'interesting' though. I wouldn't dismiss it.
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Yes, I think if one believes the stories literally, you really have to send logic and reason on vacation. Just for a random example: According to the story of the Exodus, the numbers of fighting men, women, and children would have been close to 2 million (Not counting flocks and herds). So where does the daily water come from. Moses taps a rock with his rod and out comes water for 2 million people.

Now according to the military survival specialists, the minimum one can get by on is around 2 1/2 gallons per day for cooking, cleaning, drinking and bathing. You do the math and it would be like a damn breaking and you are downstream, and let's not even get into the latrine situation for that many people.

Additionally, it would have depleted more than half of Egypt's workforce thus sending them into a severe recession, including all the damage from the plagues. However, records show that Egypt was thriving during that time, so it makes no sense logically. Plus, how do you get lost in a land where there are regular caravans that traveled that route regularly. It's just crazy, but it's only my opinion.
 
bobcat48 said:
Yes, I think if one believes the stories literally, you really have to send logic and reason on vacation. Just for a random example: According to the story of the Exodus, the numbers of fighting men, women, and children would have been close to 2 million (Not counting flocks and herds). So where does the daily water come from. Moses taps a rock with his rod and out comes water for 2 million people.

Now according to the military survival specialists, the minimum one can get by on is around 2 1/2 gallons per day for cooking, cleaning, drinking and bathing. You do the math and it would be like a damn breaking and you are downstream, and let's not even get into the latrine situation for that many people.

Additionally, it would have depleted more than half of Egypt's workforce thus sending them into a severe recession, including all the damage from the plagues. However, records show that Egypt was thriving during that time, so it makes no sense logically. Plus, how do you get lost in a land where there are regular caravans that traveled that route regularly. It's just crazy, but it's only my opinion.
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This is great! This is my kind of data! And reasoning. These things ultimately get to a point whereby even though more reasoning is possible, further reasoning isnt necassary.
 
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Sippican said:
I once asked a newspaper editor a question about his readership at a cookout I was hosting. The question was, "why didn't he report complete news to his readership?" His response was, "he write based on the intelligence of his readers". Sad, very sad.

Sad, but true.
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Very true…
The British tabloids : The Sun, The Mirror and Daily Mail attract a certain type of reader and the editors of those rags, pander to their needs for scandal, gossip and alarming articles!
.
 
bobcat48 said:
So just wondering in what ways do you think all the information we consume on a daily basis is affecting society?
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As far as the political news media;
Doesn't seem to be bringing us all together
Seems to be making us divisional
Can't be good
Heh, what most folks don't realize is;

left right.jpg


As far as other media;
I'm into local news

National and World wide media;
I usually divide by two, and believe half of that

As far as the tabloids;
The printed matter starts a good fire
 

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