I didn’t know how little I knew

I stopped using facebook…

…about two years ago. When I stopped, I definitely didn’t miss out too much. Everyone was posting useless stuff and sharing the latest gossip. I felt no need to be part of this. I didn’t have a smartphone and I did actually enjoy paying attention to my surroundings.

Whenever I saw someone using his or his or her smartphone on the bus, train, bike, sidewalk… I never felt jealous. I sit on the bus and see the one next to me scrolling through her Instagram-News (or whatever their called, another medium I don’t use) and literally hitting the like-button (again: I don’t know if this is how it’s called) on every second picture. There was no meaning and her friend also stared at her phone. I always felt like communication was somewhat lost.

On April 21, I went to University…

…I was on my way to a cultural studies seminar and my interest was overshadowed with thoughts on my upcoming chemistry exam. So I was on my way to a class called Inside the News Media. I hardly knew any news media except for newspapers and magazines or their online versions. I got to know medium and I was intrigued by so many posts that didn’t seem nonsensical to me.

A lot has changed…

…since I last used facebook. I was told that now there are pages which provide you with useful information. Pages that people actually look at. But I was not surprised to learn that there still are people who do check their facebook account first thing in the morning and whose last partner Facebook is. But at least most of them are getting more and more access to news.

I was given a new awareness

I used to be the super-passive news consumer. I never wondered why I was given really weird information sometimes. That’s newspaper business and I didn’t care. I now am aware of churnalism, of the low willingness to pay for news, of the struggle most papers have and how uneconomic advertisements for online newspapers are and many other facts and background information. Will this change my news-conception? Hopefully, I’d say. Everything else would make me look stupid as I always thought of knowledge as a resource that comes with responsibility towards oneself…