It’s Probably Time To Stop Complaining And Keep Living

Over the past month, articles about the COVID-19 pandemic have been plaguing news sites everywhere (pun intended). Every article seems to read the same, stating obvious facts such as, “COVID will change how we live our lives” or “Life will never be the same.” Every journalism article seems to spew the same few ideas at us, over and over. How many articles have you read about how our lives are changing because of the pandemic? How many times have you heard or even had a conversation with someone about how “[insert topic here]” will never be the same after this is all over? Or how COVID-19 will change how we think about the health of our planet, or ourselves, and hopefully get us to change for the good? One time? Maybe five? It can’t be more than ten, right? We, as a community and society, have oversaturated the media with near pointless articles that lead us back through a circle right to where we began. 

For me, seeing those types of articles gives away how bad of a system we’ve created for ourselves in a world of mass media. In this world where journalists can report on anything that’s happening,  I’d say that about 75% of what is being pushed to our smartphones and computers is related to what we’ve all been talking about recently: Coronavirus. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is no problem with reporting on current events. However, the mass media has become oversaturated with the same old repeated articles that we’ve grown accustomed to. If this keeps happening, it will be extremely easy for the American public to jump the gun on future articles that actually are different from what they are used to.

There is a time and a place for these types of articles, and by the mass media posting constant barrages of articles about COVID-19, we are becoming slowly desensitized from the events that we should care about. In the case of the media, less is more.