There Is More Going On Out There

I was browsing Yahoo! And Google News the other day and I realized that I was witness to a phenomenon that occurs every single day. There were stories being reported of massive tragedies and life-changing events from around the world: an earthquake in Turkey, Gadhafi killed, and President Obama pulling troops out of Iraq, all events that help shape the world around us. Yet when I look to see which topics and web searches are currently trending in the search engine’s top 10 listing, I see stories about Lindsay Lohan, Lady Gaga, and the NFL.

It struck me as odd that people seemed more interested in entertainment news than real world events. It is almost as if we, the public, don’t care, or worse, don’t want to care about other people and places. There seems to be a wall of ignorance that many of us put up to block out stories and information that may challenge our personal beliefs and notions on how the world works. By bombarding ourselves with useless trivia on celebrities, sports, and other forms of entertainment, we are, in essence, making it so that we do not have to think about other people and important issues.

I had to find out if this was really the case.

I walked around campus the other day to try to gain perspective on how many students know about major events that are currently affecting our planet. I spoke with 10 different students whose majors ranged from HCOM to ESTP, and pulled from every class standing from freshmen to seniors.

My experiment was simple; I asked each student two questions, one about the earthquake in Turkey, and the other about Lindsay Lohan breaking her probation.

Sadly, only 4 out of the 10 students had anything relevant to say about the earthquake in Turkey, the other 6 just acted surprised upon learning this.

Interestingly though when I presented the Lindsay Lohan question, 5 students knew some information about the subject, while the other 5 said they didn’t care.

What I inferred from my mini-experiment was that it seemed like more people knew about the useless Lohan information, yet didn’t really care, while less people knew about Turkey but were, at least, interested enough to learn and understand the story.

The students I spoke with seemed interested in major news events from around the world but it doesn’t seem like they are really motivated enough to find the information on their own. Aaron Snyder, senior, Environmental Science Technology and Policy, explained his theory as to why this phenomenon occurs, “I don’t believe that students are too lazy or too busy with their own lives…they just don’t want to deal with the social responsibility that comes with knowing about things that go on in the world.”

How can we change this?

While attending classes I have noticed that so many professors try to inspire their students to think about the larger world around them. To not only get involved in their community, but to expand their knowledge enough to ignite a desire to learn and gain understanding of the worldwide issues and events. Many of these professors use current issues and events as topics for discussions and assignments in an attempt to bring students up to speed on the world around them.

Debra Bussman, who is a long-time professor, the co-director of the Creative Writing and Social Actions program, and coordinator for Service Learning at California State University, Monterey Bay, gave her opinion on the subject, “I think corporate controlled media plays a huge role in keeping us ignorant and distracted. Given the studies that show that by the time a child turns 18, (he or she) will have spent more time in front of a TV than in a classroom, it is not surprising that folks know more about the Kardashians latest assault on the sanctity of marriage than what’s happening with Arab Spring.”