“Does it spark joy?” Ever since Marie Kondo’s life motto went viral this year after the drop of her Netflix series, people have been using her philosophy to “clean up” multiple areas of their lives. Its original purpose referred to cleaning, and throwing away the objects in your home that did not bring you joy. But can we apply this philosophy to media clutter?
As a journalism student, being attached to every form of social media and over a dozen media organizations is a requirement. It drives me just a little bit crazy to hear day in and day out about all the various ways the world is falling apart. Sometimes, it even feels as if I and my colleagues in the journalism department are not spending precious brain time sifting through media clutter to keep informed, but to intellectually scoop one another.
To summarize thus far: Does living your life attached to CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic and The New Yorker bring you joy? If not — then stop.
It doesn’t work that way. Quitting cold turkey is difficult. It is even harder because in this day and age, in this political climate, staying informed is not just something you do, it is a moral imperative.
For 24 hours, I logged every piece of news media that I consumed. On that day I realized that I keep myself sane during the Information Age not by removing the essential ingredients of the gluttonous American media diet, but by adding more of what made me happy.
The stories I clicked on and the videos I watched were often from social media accounts that catered to my non-news interests, such as theater — even though on the day I logged my media consumption habits, the reason I logged so many theater articles was because Carol Channing died that morning.
Then, of course, I kept clicking on a silly article like “Has Queen Elizabeth II ever had pizza?” to make myself feel better. The article concluded that no, she probably has not had pizza, but do I regret reading it? Nope.
After that, I went back to following Theresa May’s Brexit deal drama.
Queen Elizabeth and pizza articles are the sort of media that breaks through the clutter because it is ridiculous and it makes me happy. While many people would consider that clutter as it is designed to get clicks, but let’s face it, so is CNN. At least this was fun, different, and I am not looking through 15 different version of the same story about how the world is basically on fire. Sometimes, you just need a palette cleanser.
That is how you break through the media clutter: You grit your teeth and get through the hard news, the important world-changing stuff. It is oatmeal. And then you follow Brother Nature on Twitter and get lost in cat videos and articles about which beauty products have CBD in them. That is cheesecake.
According to the Moments app, I use my phone for an average of 5.5 hours per day. I’m a proven cell phone addict. What is the harm to the world if I occasionally choose to break through the media clutter with the shenanigans of the British Royal Family instead of the latest New Yorker thinkpiece?
