CHLOE MICHAEL, STUDENT REPORTER:
I'm Chloe Michael from the KAWC Student Newsroom.
The digital age, also known as the Information Age, is like no other era. Everyone you know has a phone — your friends, your professors, coworkers. Hey, even grandma has one!
Something that you can fit in your hand that has the ability to tell you anything, take you anywhere, whenever you want. What an interesting concept! It sounds too good to be true, right? But at what cost?
According to the American Psychological Association, younger adult generations such as Gen Z and millennials are more likely to experience burnout compared to older generations.
As a professor of history and sociology, Monica Ketchum-Cárdenas is used to seeing more than one side to a story. In a time where our social media algorithms have become more hyper individualized, it may be difficult to take a step back and see the bigger picture.
MONICA KETCHUM-CÁRDENAS, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY:
One of the challenges that we have now — and this is something that sociologists also look at — is technology. The growing reliance on technology in order to socialize, in order to get our news, and we're looking more at social media for our news. And with that comes algorithms.
And so I find that a lot of times what happens is not just among students, but among our population in general, is that we end up with our algorithms just kind of reinforcing our views and our viewpoints. So we don't necessarily have that balanced, um, information about what's going on in the world when it comes to receiving information.
MICHAEL:
Dr. Ketchum explains why it can be harmful to hear only one perspective. Even she admits that it can be challenging to find news that doesn't feel biased.
KETCHUM-CÁRDENAS:
It can be very negative. In other cases, it can be overly positive, right? So you end up with toxic positivity because you're just totally, you know, out there.
Myself for my job as, as a history professor and, and a, you know, sociology professor, right? I have to read the news. I get newsletters every day and I do really try and make sure that I'm seeing both sides and really trying to look at things from both perspectives to understand what's going on and kind of weed through. Unfortunately, you know, it's hard. It's very hard to filter.
MICHAEL:
She notices that in our society, there has been quite a divide in how the news that is presented today can play a role in the polarization.
KETCHUM-CÁRDENAS:
I feel like we're seeing a lot with the polarization in our society and with just the way that, for example, the way that news is presented. It's a lot of people yelling and, and making, you know, creating sound bites rather than reporting,
MICHAEL:
Ketchum shares about how we can fact check and observe the information we receive.
KETCHUM-CÁRDENAS:
Seek out some different news outlets, perhaps that are are less biased. If you look at — there's a couple of websites where you can do like bias fact check, and you can look at where different newspapers or, or news outlet magazines fall on the spectrum and, and kind of try and, and choose. I mean, you can choose to look at whatever you want, but like, look at things that are closer to the middle so that you consuming a little bit more of a balanced view.
MICHAEL:
As we continue to live in the digital age where we have all the information in the world, we are now encouraged more than ever to step back... take a deep breath... and look at it from a different perspective. With the more you know, we can bridge the gap between the divide.
From the KAWC Student Newsroom, I'm Chloe Michael.
