You Cannot Turn it Off: News Addiction

BizangoBob writes: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help. There's a great piece about news addiction in the Washington Post. It made me feel I'm not the only one."

Comments

Morale

[gutier]

The piece is suggestive of something: instead of proudly being an American by being fully aware of all that is taking place, proudly be an American by doing something to help instead of sitting around watching TV.

Excessive News Coverage == Win for Terrorism

[Masem]

Just like several other things like loss of civil liberties and increased security at places, extended news coverage is yet another victory for terrorism. It's very understandable that for few days from the incident for the major networks to be filled with news as the events break, but we're at the point were 1) we're very unlikely to find any new survivors, and 2) any investigation and future planning should be done without much public information as to maintain state secrecy. Thus, news coverage since Friday has been simply repeating the same events over and over and filling the screen with talking heads. In addition, the net equivalent seems to be happening at the major news sites; too many analysis, very little pro-active stories. And yet as the base article indicates, we're too much drawn to it. At least up to Friday, my productivity at work for the week and at home is way down since I feel like I'm continually checkign these sites, but as news is no longer flowing as fast as it did Weds, I think I'm over that bilge.

The longer that these news outlets contrinue to push this 24/7 news schedule, the longer it will take the rest of the american (and other countries as well) people to return to a sense of normalicy, which is what we ought to be striving for to show the terrorists that this attack did little to stiffle the American spirit. Sure, I'd expect to have soem expanded news coverage as events break, but we should be watching regular programming at this point. Particularly this weekend, as families have a chance for family time, it's important that the networks offer fare that the entire family can enjoy as opposed to more news coverage.

And yet another sign that terrorism has won a bit is the fact that several movies, TV shows, and video games are being pulled for the time being or revamped in the short term to accommodate the loss. In some cases, such as Anrold's new movie or FOX's "24" or the video game Majesty, this makes sense; events are too close to reality that pulling them for the short term just makes sense. I also being not holding the bulk of sports events this weekend is also a reasonable step (both emotionally and technically; how do you get all those people from one side of the country to other with air travel only just starting to get back to normal?) But then you also have cases where, for example, a new Tim Allen comedy in NYC is pulled since it simply involves the WTC, a new Jackie Chan movie being pulled and revamped completely despite the amount of footage already shot since Chan's character in it was a window washer for the WTC, C&C Red Alert 2 being pulled since it shows NYC on fire on the cover of the box, Microsoft immediately altering the next version of it's Flight Sim to remove the WTC from the NYC area (and in the UK, the flight sim being removed from shelves as it was claimed that the terrorists could have learned to fly from that), and numerous other examples which are more knee-jerk than thought out. Again, each of these knee-jerk actions are wins for terrorism, because that's the type of lifestyle that we've come to enjoy and expect, and now, at best for the short term, that's gone.

Yes, at least according to the President, we're in a National Emergancy, so I expect some parts of our lives to be distrupted. But it is much more important to show that the American resolve and spirit cannot be broken as easily as it was, and thus, we must strive to get back to normalacy in our lives, and unfortunately, the constant barrage of news is not helping.

Why News addiction?

[Veteran]

Because knowledge is power.

People do understand that fact on some level; learning about something does give them information to act upon.

Here is some information which has not been reported in the general news: guess who the commander-in-chief of the Afghan military is.

I'll type the article in in part since it is on an extremely slow server even without the slashdot effect.

"MOSCOW, Aug 30 (UPI) - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the appointment of Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, the official RIA Novosti news agency reported."

I am not setting this up as a link because for some reason the Slashdot editor (in Netscape) insists on putting a space in the number 216037, and I can't get the link to work. If you wish to see the original - copy and paste the address into your browser and delete the space.

http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=216 03 7

Several comments:

• Note the date on the story: almost 2 weeks before the trade center attack.
  
• I first saw the link on www.drudgereport.com
  
• Appointing someone as your commander-in-chief qualifies as somewhat more than harboring - don't you think?
  
• The original source of the report was Pakistan's 'Nation daily'.
  
• The story - like everything you read - might be false. But since it predates the current furor - I tend to believe it. Chances are -before the crisis - the UPI wouldn't have published it without checking sources
  

My experience.

[Telek]

I know exactly what you mean.

When I saw the first news I headed over to all the news sites that I could find (I found out shortly after the first crash) and I was engrossed. My first reaction was one of "woah!" and I just wanted to follow everything that was happening, almost on the edge of my seat waiting for the next thing to happen. Figuring that a building could not possibly stand up after being hit by a plane, I headed over to here (love that site) to find out everything that I could about how those buildings were built. I was glued to the screen for a good 2 hours, until a thought stuck me. I was looking at one of the images, and said "man, that looks so fake" and caught myself thinking (one of those 1/2 second back-of-your-mind thoughts) "they should have done a better job on the CG of that one"...

BAM!

Then it hit me. Almost all of the images looked like something out of a movie. I had been so desensitized that, upon seeing these images, my mind just assumed that they were fake. It did not want to accept the idea that they were real, so it was neat to want to see all about it that I could find.

Man was I disgusted with myself when I figured that one out.

Flame me down if you want, but I know that I wasn't the only one who thought that way. Once it sunk in that this was real, and those falling bodies out of the windows were real people, and after the first tower collapsed knowing that for the same reason the second one would collapse, and looking at it and knowing that there wasn't shit that I could do, and knowing that the people outside and the firefighters knew the same thing, man. That was a shock. I tried to donate but the stupid amazon form wouldn't accept my postal code, so I went and gave blood instead. I was half of the mind to go down there to see if there was anything that I could do to help (I was about a 5 hour drive away, I'm 1.5hr from the US border in Toronto) but when the borders were closed, and I came to my senses, I realized how entirely useless I was.

I just hope that some good does come out of this. I stopped watching the news after about 4 hours because I was disgusted at the media trying to grandstand with every little bit of information that they had, and watching the rumours go from the first emergance, and hearing them spread from newsteam to newsteam like a bad game of broken telephone, I knew that I had to stop.

Ack. May the passing of the deceased pave the way for a new era of peace and harmony amongst all beings on the earth. I would hate to know that all of this happened and the result was nothing more than a little revenge. Lets hope that this anti-terrorism coilition will stand tall over time and help to eliminate this uglyness.

Ars Technica

[FFFish]

Best Thread Ever is posted at Ars Technica.

For those of you wishing some sense of closure, perhaps the Ars Technica thread will assist. It contains dozens upon dozens of photographs of people around the world memorializing the tragedy.

It is touching. And in between the pictures, the words of support and gratefulness will move you.

If there is a single positive outcome to this terrible event, it is that over a billion people have realized the important truth: we are all one people, united in humanity because we are all human.

Together, we could create a utopia. Divided, we create terror, pain, and tragedy.

Let our next thoughts, next decisions, next actions lead us toward a better world.

forget CNN

[hugg]

Knowing more *will* help, insofar as making you more informed then the rest of the spoon-fed populace, and maybe able to enlighten a few other people with your knowledge. But don't watch CNN or any of the mainstream networks that are geared toward angry, emotional soccer moms. This is not yet a time for mourning, it's a time to educate ourselves, make the right decisions, and preserve the stability of our nation.

Research the history of the conflict, get to know all sides of the story, get to know the people we will eventually be fighting. Something as simple as going to the "world trade center attack" category on Yahoo! and surfing around is a good start.

Ponder the incredible ripple effect an attack would have on the rest of the world, and how difficult are the decisions we face. There are a million variables in the diplomatic equation in this crisis -- I hope Joshua is working on the problem full-time.

It's definitely not simple!

[robinjo]

all the civilized countries throughout the world will classify other countries as either pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist. As of Tuesday, there's no middle ground, no room for dissembling or prevarication: they're either with us or against us, either for or against terrorism. Governments will make their choices... and they and their citizens will bear the consequences, terrible consequences.

My country stayed neutral during the cold war. My country has participated in peace keeping for ages and hosted conferences where nations have brought closer to each other.

I can't find the words to describe how sad and disappointed I am to hear how USA demands my country to give up on our neutrality and choose side. It's absolutely revolting how the strongest country in the world forces countries to look at the world in black or white.

Based on a poll 29% of US citizens do not support bombing. Is USA going to make these people "bear the concequences?" Or is US going to respect their right to free speech and own opinions? If so, why does US prohibit this right from peaceloving countries?