On a more personal level, it now means we have to safeguard and discipline that which enters our minds. Just like shopping in an oversized mall or grocery store with tens of thousands of products, we must somehow navigate the world of information. Allowing yourself to be highjacked by the algorithms or the eyeball-chasing news coverage constantly featuring some BREAKING story leaves you swooshing around aimlessly, mentally exhausted, your limbic system triggered and cortisol levels spiking. …
First, the information then available (and, with purpose, curated by the journalist) may be wrong. To hold your attention, the journalist got a juicy quote from a bystander or some pointy-hat with an academic degree. Often, it turns out, a lot of initially reported information isn’t correct — but nobody bothers with checking the correction updates a day, week, or year later. Nuance doesn’t sell.
Second, and more devastatingly, information often turns out to be irrelevant. What was initially reported on was not what turned out to be the critical bit of the event. Fair enough, we can only know that with hindsight… which is the whole point! Report and inform yourself — carefully, deliberately — and only once all (or at least most) facts are already on the table.
[Pretty sage advice, although occasionally a situation requires acute decisions made on a best-info-available basis. The key to that is to stay informed on a constant basis, though, not to retreat from the information stream. This is one reason why we eventually refrained from doing live-blogs on breaking news stories about shootings and other erupting situations. Too often the initial reports were inaccurate, or turned out to be irrelevant. While we got the clicks, we found it far better to wait until the whole situation could be reviewed. – Ed]
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