Modern family with devices

The last day of January 2015 is bringing the ‘big’ snowstorm we have been talking about and waiting for, or maybe not. Talk about snowstorms, often is just that, just talk. But even if the snowfall reaches 6–8 inches how bad is that? I can remember snowfalls of foot or two that would be considered just another one. Thanks to constant weather reports, on news, smart phone computer and tablets weather predictions are always with us, like it or not. I like it when the weather reporters are wrong, like recently in New York City where 2–3 feet were predicated, the worst snowstorm even. The subways, trains, and buses were shut down and the streets were closed. When only ten inches fell the word was “better safe than sorry.”

What we made a big deal of today is often decided by the media. The media will pick up on some story like terrorist attack in Paris or deflated footballs in a NFL game and make much of it, while other stories of more significance are put aside. Talking heads on TV will appear to tell us all about the picked story while the others news, good or bad, goes neglected. Who are the gatekeepers who decide what we hear and see on major media?

The internet has stolen some power of the gatekeepers of media away since there news and information can be released around the world by just about anyone who has computer and a little money. In fact there is so much information out there these days it becomes hard to distinguish what is important or not.

The overwhelming of the world with information, where many people walk around with a smart phone, checking news, weather, emails, twitter or a million other things has become a distraction to organizing and focusing persons on injustices. When I try to support issues like racism fighting poverty or military training to kill humans, I often had heard that is “your issue and I have my own.” True enough but unless we get together to focus and organize around specific issues nothing gets down. We just talk and talk and hold more conferences and talk some more.

Learning from history seems to take a backseat to what is happening now. Have we become a nation tied to our smart phones and do not really hear or see what is going on around us?

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