In a generalization of college culture, I have found that so many students (myself included) tune out when it comes to the news and what is going on in the world around them. In my case, what I was studying left me with little time to care about anything besides how cells divide or metallic reactions. When I started studying subjects that asked me to be more involved in my world, I felt abashed. I didn’t know anything, I lived in a complex of ignorance. Blissfully going about my days, uninvolved in politics and the like.
Youth living in ignorance is good for the government because the people who have the power can serve their interests, versus that of those they cannot relate to. This is human nature, we serve ourselves in order to be prosperous in our own pursuits. Seemingly selfish, this is a habit our primal ancestors developed in order to survive and reproduce. But in reading the news, we can join together. There are more meaningful things for my friends and I to talk about, and I can even converse better with adults.
But the ignorance that many of us “youth” live in causes the under-serving of our interests. In order to speak our truth and our voices, it is important to become educated and aware of what is happening in the world around us. It takes a lot of reading and a vested interest in potentially over-knowing about what is going on in your world. Coming from a communications and journalism background, with a little penchant for gossip, I started to love reading articles more and more. Personally, I find it difficult to make time to sit and read a book, but articles are easy. They take around 5 minutes to read, but the gossip is educational and helps me to better understand my world around me.
I started out by subscribing to a daily newsletter called “The Morning Brew”, it is a great 10-minute, first thing when you wake up read. It is overwhelming to start off attempting to read the news as there is so much to read and learn about. With a daily newsletter (NYT, WSJ, etc.), there is jam-packed blurbs of information with hyperlinks to more in depth articles. You can easily digest a day’s worth of content in a few minutes, if you have more time you can delve into the world’s daily happenings. If not, spending a quick 5 minutes to learn what the stocks, government, and corporate sector are doing for the day is a great way to start your news media education. In repeating this action daily, you can train your brain to understand the news and want to read more.
After a month of reading the Morning Brew, granted I would have to play catch up at times, I understood so much more about the corporate sector, inner workings of the stock market, and current and previous government policies. In being educated on the news, I can better contribute to class discussion, hone my writing craft, and I feel that finally I can make my mark on the world in knowing what would be best for me and my generation.
So, I challenge you to take 5 minutes out of your day to floss. Just kidding! I beg of you, I ask of you, please read at least 1 article of news a day. I’m not talking about “Kim Kardashian Tripped and Fell, Drops F*** Bomb”, I’m talking “Break it Up You Three: Here we have Silicon Valley’s worst nightmare” an article on breaking up a media-trust in Silicon valley. (Media trust= a group of corps who formed a conglomerate= potentially risky for the industry and market) Look at that, you’ve read an article today, you made it to the end, and you learned a little about the media industry. I challenge you to look forward and subscribe to a newsletter to learn some quickly daily news. It will be worth it I promise, if you need to bribe yourself an almond milk latte might do the trick. ;)
Until Next Time, Claud <3