By Hannah Blahut
We’ve all been there. Procrastinating in the library by scrolling through our Facebook newsfeeds, or robbing ourselves of precious sleep late at night, tossing ourselves down a rabbit hole of clicks and browsing. Of course, it’s easy to lose hours of time exploring the Internet. Never before has so much information and entertainment been at our fingertips. With new sites and features being developed every hour of every day, the opportunities for Internet exploration are literally endless. Yet, with so many options, why is it that an astounding number of articles and links being posted and shared online aren’t even true articles or news at all, but are essentially glorified lists accompanied by silly gifs?
Álvaro J. Soltero, the co-founder and Managing Editor of The Social U. and senior at Tufts University explains why he boycotts buzzfeed.com, a site known for it’s lighthearted, dumb silly content in this article http://thesocialu101.com/why-i-boycott-buzzfeed/.“Why do we prefer quick, easily digestible, shallow content like the type that Buzzfeed got famous for?” Questions Soltero. “I think it’s sad that, with so much valuable information available to us on the Internet, I see more Buzzfeed articles on my newsfeed than I do good content.”
As a college student that will plead guilty to falling for the occasional click trap that Buzzfeed lays, I can see where Soltero is coming from. It’s true that I have had moments while scrolling through a list like “34 Reasons This Baby Hedgehog Is Doing It Right” that I wonder why I am wasting my life. At the same time, I don’t think that everything we read on the Internet must be hard-hitting, serious content. There are a multitude of reasons why people use the Internet, and I don’t believe that it is one person’s duty to judge others on their use. There are people who use the internet purely to stay current on the news and events of the world, while others use it for relaxation, or simply a place to look at cute hedgehogs.
My generation is known as the generation that multitasks. We are perpetually connected and like things to happen quickly. We live an on demand life when it comes to technology, so it’s only natural that we expect to get our news in the same fashion. The idea of sitting down with a physical newspaper and reading it through is foreign to many people in my age demographic. While many thing that’s rather sad, I think that it’s natural. A group of young people more comfortable with touch screen than newsprint desires quick and immediate news, and we have the ability to get that.
The trick is, we must be aware that sites like Buzzfeed should not replace real news outlets. It’s easier said than done, but I believe that our generation needs to work towards using the Internet as a tool just as often as we use it as a toy. For each list of cute cats that we click on, we need to balance that out with “real” news or informational content. It’s unrealistic to blame Buzzfeed for our lack of interest in content, although it does play a role as a great distractor. The key lies in smart consumption. As the generation of people most comfortable on the Internet, we should also be most comfortable using it as a tool.
I hope that in some way, this post inspires you to balance out your time between internet time for fun and internet time for learning. And just before you click out of this browser to open up bostonglobe.com or thenewyorktimes.com, you should stick around to take this buzzfeed quiz which will answer a truly pressing question: What is your inner potato? Spoiler alert, I’m a home-fry.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kimberlywang/what-is-your-inner-potato?bffb
Hey! I was just kidding! Go read the (online) newspaper instead 🙂