Media24(7)

My gosh, keeping up with current events can be a full time job!

I recently subscribed to a few things, including the digital format of the New York Times. It hasn’t been a month and I’m slowly unsubscribing one after another. I guess it is my personality trait of having attention to detail that makes it challenging for me to ‘scan’ through the articles, but I find that the amount of reading can be rather time consuming. I simply don’t have enough coffee, bacon and eggs to last me a whole morning paper.

I have found most of the articles in the New York Times to stretch across two pages and by the time you’re done reading the first subscription in your e-mail box, not only is it time for lunch, but two or three more updates have been delivered. If you let them stand over till later, they get buried under the next e-mail and that gets buried under the next and before you know it, it is old news.

I just find that we have such a vast amount of media out there today; television news, paper print magazines and news papers and the digital versions that you can subscribe to via e-mail, radio news broadcasts (sometimes every half an hour) internet news and video, etc. etc. With regard to the radio I’ve often driven from one location to another feeling like I’ve heard nothing else but news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising. Where did the music go?

If you dig in you can very easily get buried. You quickly find out that trying to stay on top of it all leaves you very little time for anything else much. Then one also has to be cautious that all the negativity doesn’t poison you, leaving you discouraged or hopeless. It certainly does not appear as if it is good news that causes sales to skyrocket.

I have discovered something that works nicely for me. I can view the main stories of the day via Yahoo in the form of video clips that are an average of 2 to 3 minutes long. I enjoy it being short and concise. I enjoy the video footage – sometimes it causes me to take in more of the information and to remember it not only better, but for longer. Plus, I can listen to these while making breakfast and during having breakfast. I’m forever multi-tasking.

At one stage the negativity was a bit too much, leaving me feeling rather depressed. Because of that I chose not to watch news or listen to the radio for a time. I still think, however, that it is good to be aware of what is happening around you. It is simply a question of balance, so I’m going to be selective and go with the shovel instead of the truckload... for now anyway! Who knows, maybe I’ll even have time for one or two of my favourite songs in between!