About 2 weeks before I recorded this podcast, I experienced another phenomenon associated with perception. I switched the radios in my house and car from an all-talk public radio station to an all-music one.
This wasn’t a rash decision on my part and I initially felt guilty about what I perceived—there’s that concept again!—as a potentially detrimental lack of awareness of what was going on in the world. I mean, seriously, the fact that I wouldn’t recognize Ashton, Brittany, or the Jonas Brothers (or is it Boys?) if they were tap-dancing on the roof of my garden shed already proves my interest in pop culture is woefully lacking. Dared I risk also not having the critical information all those news shows claim to provide?
But the reality was that I really wasn’t getting much in the way of objective information, regardless of its source or how urgently presented. I was being subjected to a barrage of news-opinion geared to trigger the full spectrum of emotion. I was being being chewed up by sound-bites telling me what was important and what to think about it, often by journalists with a smattering of experts thrown in to create a semblance of credibility.
So, fully expecting to be struck down by the god of mass media, I traded in all-talk for music. I now listen to about a half hour of world news from the BBC and about 20 minutes of national and local news plus the weather Monday through Friday. If my weekend schedule allows, I listen to “CarTalk” and sometimes “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” because both shows make me laugh. Beyond that, it’s either more music or no radio at all.
After a few days of angst, I noticed a perceptual shift. I was thinking, really thinking, about what was going on in the world and its implications. Until then, it had never dawned on me that the constant barrage of sound-bites never allowed time for that. I accepted the little media packets and thought I was informed when I was merely saturated.
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