All the news Part 2

It is a mistake to claim that the internet is all about news. But it is also a mistake to claim that newspapers are all about news. Newspapers certainly have a mission to transmit a selection of the latest important information, but they also transmit opinions and general information. They cover arts and culture and science and business. Additionally, they transmit indirect information, such as what you see in the ads. (For instance, I wonder how many people get virtually all of their selection data on movies from looking at the movie advertisements on the arts pages?) There are also purely entertaining sections in most newspapers, things like puzzles and comics. When I make the (futile) demand that the Sailors read the Times I am making it in the belief that there is more there than analyses of economics in Kyrgyzstan. A lot of it is fun and entertaining, and a lot of it is not news but simply good stuff they might want to know, or opinions on subjects that are of direct (resolutional) interest.

Obviously the internet is even more diverse than the seeming monolith of a newspaper. And it has some advantages over newspapers that are causing great and perhaps fatal harm to that older breed of media. In many respects, if not all, the internet does what newspapers do, and it does it better. It doesn’t have the ergonomic satisfaction of coffee mug and comfy chair on a Sunday morning, but it’s approaching that satisfaction with machinery like the Kindle and netbooks. But with the advantage of more and faster information comes the disadvantage of our having to sort through all that information.

Curiously enough, I’m still not settled on getting my literal news from the internet, so I don’t make any recommendations there yet, aside from applying what I’m saying here to that avenue as well in search of your own accommodation with today’s technology. Personally I still like my combination of NPR, breakfast and the New York Times as my specific feeds of data on the most important “news” stories of the day (excluding the breakfast part of it). This is about a half hour of my life every day (and more on the weekends). That’s a pretty substantial percentage of my conscious existence.

But as for all the rest of that stuff, let’s face it. Unless you spend all day surfing dozens if not hundreds of websites, it is all trees falling soundlessly in the forest as far as you are concerned. You don’t hear it, so it isn’t happening. While there are situations where the concept of you going out and getting information makes sense, if that’s the only approach you have to information on the internet, you’re not even making it to the level of dilettante.

So much information! So little time! But am I saying that you need all of the information on the internet? Of course not. What you need is a method for extracting the right information in a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of effort. In other words, until you are using RSS, and with a sense of mission, you just aren’t doing there yet. You are driving a horse and buggy down the autobahn, watching the sports cars zip past you. Don’t tell me you’re enjoying the journey. The driver of the Boxster is really enjoying the journey; you’re just making a virtue of ignorance.

Get over it.

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