As I grew up, I distinctly remember when I would sit in front of the TV with my mum at 7:30PM to watch the daily news broadcast, a 30-minute segment that summed up international and local issues. What once started as a compulsory routine initiated by my parents became some sort of voluntary commitment. As the years went by, and I left home for highschool, this habit came to a halt. As much as I hate to admit it, over the past few years, I get most of my news intake through Facebook. While it seems to provide the greatest access to a variety of different sources, the validity and importance of some of the news can be questionable. Hence, for the rewire activity, I decided to begin my temporary detox from Facebook (I still retained the messenger app), and consciously (or forcefully) move towards a certified news broadcasting app \u2013 my choice being the New York Times due to the paid subscription our university provides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My\noverall experience was quite fruitful, and I have two main takeaways from this\nactivity. Firstly, Facebook wires our brain to a lower attention span. Most\narticles on Facebook are short and concise, with very limited details. Hence,\nas I started reading longer articles on NYT, I began to get restless, often\nstopping halfway through. Nevertheless, the depth of information you attain is remarkable,\nallowing oneself to be well-informed \u2013 one example being my current knowledge\non Khashoggi\u2019s death and the politics between Saudi and the US. Secondly, even\nwith all its flaws, Facebook promotes diversity in terms of functionality and content\n(although content might be debatable at times). In retrospect, most of the news\non NYT were US-centric \u2013 I was reading about US politics, about the pressure exerted\non university students entering the NFL, about natural disasters in the US \u2013\neverything was related somewhat to the US. Whereas, the content on Facebook is\nmuch more diverse, especially given the context of our university\u2019s student\nbody. Referring to Zuckerman\u2019s book on Digital\nCosmopolitans<\/em>, cognitive diversity is vital in developing our creativity\nand problem-solving skills. Yet, the question is whether the value of limited\nbut diverse information (Facebook) is more than detailed but concentrated information\n(NYT). <\/p>\n\n\n\n What\nI realize however is that the key is striking a balance between the two. The\nend of Chapter 8 discusses how news is shifting towards being more representative\nand more global, such that is vital for a world of digital cosmopolitans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I grew up, I distinctly remember when I would sit in front of the TV with my mum at 7:30PM to watch the daily news broadcast, a 30-minute segment that summed up international and local issues. What once started as a compulsory routine initiated by my parents became some sort of voluntary commitment. As …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions\/848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}