Billions of pieces of information are now accessible at our fingertips, allowing news to spread like wildfire. However, what’s both ironic and alarming is that despite its exponentially increased availability, more and more individuals neglect reading the news, disconnecting themselves from current political or global events. Ignoring the news creates substantial problems for individuals, and its consequences are more obvious than people think.
Overlooking the news shouldn’t just be counted off as a personal preference; instead, it is a gesture of ignorance and a choice to stay uninformed. When people aren’t up to date on current events, they are oblivious to important issues surrounding the world. They become disconnected from political and social issues around them, resulting in a lack of engagement in civic activities, like voting.
Being misinformed is even worse than being uninformed. Due to the growing popularity of social media sites, like TikTok, “news” can be offered to the audience in seconds-long videos. However, a substantial portion of those videos are not published by legitimate news sources. Consequently, the information shared is either not fact-based, or presented in a way that heavily favors one side of an issue, misinforming viewers. The abundance of fake news on these social media platforms coupled with the viewers inability to tell fact from fiction, may lead viewers to hold an inaccurate and distorted view of society and its issues. This may cause them to advocate for wrong causes and spread misinformation to others.
Ignorance to the news and the spread of information leads to an even bigger issue: people disconnected from reality. Without news, people often times lose the ability to engage in meaningful conversations and make informed decisions. Humans are unique in that we can consciously learn from the mistakes of the past, but without knowledge of news and current events, we have very little to learn from. This is what keeps us as a society stagnant: people remain in an unchanging position when they are unaware of the world’s current developments. They keep making the same choices and mistakes, oblivious to their flaws.
The effects of our ignorant society are already visible online. There are thousands of videos of educated teenagers and adults around the world unaware of basic information like the war between Ukraine and Russia or even the seven continents of the world.
The way to cure society of this problem isn’t difficult; in fact, even simply reading the news for 10 minutes a day or taking the time to question and fact-check information would be a great step toward improvement. Only with everyone aware of the news can we make our way back to a more just and informed society.
