Sam Arnone
Typical Sunday morning. Get up, go down stairs, make some coffee. My dog is lying on the floor, tail slamming against the wall because she is happy to see me. I go and pet her. One of my cats sees the dog getting attention, so now they need attention too. Everybody has been greeted/petted, got my coffee, and now I am ready to go.
I start off with the hour of media. First thing I do is go to YouTube and watch the newest episode of One Piece, a Japanese manga and anime series for those who do not know. It is amazing that I can watch a show in a completely different language airing halfway across the world with English subtitles so that I can understand what the characters are saying. At least I think. Sometimes languages do not directly translate. Next I looked up the scores to NBA games the other night. The Wizards didn’t play so don’t really care. Decided to look up the top 10 plays and see if there was anything spectacular. Nothing too amazing, although Damien Lillard’s game winner was pretty crazy. Next I decided to read some news from Reuters on my phone. Only got 20 more minutes. Vietnam’s General Secretary won a third term. Farmers are protesting in New Delhi against recent agriculture laws. Indian Prime Minister says protesters stormed the Red Fort. More news about Gamestop and Reddit. Covid vaccines look to not be nearly as effective against the South African variant. Senate Republicans meeting with Biden to come up with a relief bill. Myanmar military swears to not get involved in a coup (as of posting this that didn’t quite pan out). Time is up!
Now for the hour in nature. I decided to go for a short walk near a creek by my house to look for birds. Birds are typically more active in the early morning, and I don’t want to be outside long as it is beginning to snow hard. Not much action unfortunately. A few calls but nothing else. Maybe the birds know something I do not? I decided to ditch the bird adventure and look around. Not long after and I stumble upon some deer tracks in the snow. Where was this deer going? Was it alone? Did it know it was going to snow? It made me think that animals and plants are receiving some type of information too. That they too use it and process it in ways that are not like humans, but yet here they are. Or did people know this at one point too? Do we still? Or has it been altered? I decided to walk a little further and enjoy the ambience before the hour was up and I turned back home.
The interesting thing that I realized doing this assignment was the dichotomy between both information sources. In the media hour, everything that there is to know was at my fingertips. Yet what did I do besides watch a show, look up scores to a game, and read headlines and a couple paragraphs of news articles. It was almost as if I was disinterested in anything just because it was there. Meanwhile with the hour outdoors I actually thought and had questions. There were things that I did wonder about and wanted to know. I agree with McKibben’s premise of missing information, but I think it goes a little further than that. I think that it is harder to process the information because new information proceeds immediately after. Information is harder to retain. Media sources should be used to facilitate natural sources. However, I think that instead it has taken away from it and suppressed it.