THE NEWSPAPER WITH ONLY GOOD NEWS Newspapers cover the planes that crash, but never the planes that land safely. Of course the crash is news and the safe landing isn’t, but what a skewed view of the world it leaves us with. Bruce Schneier gave an interesting Ted Talk on how this way of understanding the world leads to a dangerous disconnect between perceived risks and real risks — we worry about a plane crash rather taking precautions to drive more safely on the way to the airport. I often wondered, what if there were a newspaper with only common, mostly good news. Coverage of all the babies born rather than babies kidnapped, of planes that landed safely rather than ones that crashed, and of people who died peacefully after a full life rather than in horrible accidents. It would be an awfully boring paper and go out of business, but what a statement it would make. Now we pretty much have that in Facebook, Twitter and the like. For the most part, people only post good news about themselves: vacations, promotions, new relationships, babies, parties, and even safe landings. Facebook is publishing that impossible newspaper of mostly good news. And they’re making a load of money doing it. However, this rush of good news isn’t all good news. As Caterina Fake says, it exploits our basic human anxiety of FOMO (fear of missing out). We share our news of fun parties, successes, and vacations, rather than times of boredom, self-doubt and drudgery. How can one’s real life to live up to the imagined lives of others as informed by their Facebook timeline? In another Ted Talk, Eli Pariser warns that we’re all in “filter bubbles" that rob us of a common front page experience. Pariser quotes a prescient though depressing observation by Mark Zuckerberg, “A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa."
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 08:18:31 +0000
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