Having come home rather late on an otherwise regular Wednesday night (08/09/10), I decided to aimlessly log onto the internet - as any university with impending assignments does – to see what had been happening whilst I was in the (rather ironically) isolated outer world.
Immediately I was prompted by a headline that was literally flashing stating rather ambiguously "shots fired; cop down". It goes without saying that I immediately clicked on this link, before it was replaced by another headline that didn’t carry such stature of abnormality.
Having divulged then refreshed and re-divulged all of the (scarce) facts that were available at this point (pretty much just the location and the ensuing crowds), I began straying from my primary news source to find more details.
Much like a drug-addict desperately scrounging for any change that can contribute towards funding their next hit, I rushed to Google and after throwing a number of key terms in, I found some extra details such as the time of the incident, and the raid that had preceded it. Although all of these facts were at this time unconfirmed, they were sufficient to keep the itching at bay.
In my exaggeratedly exhausted ‘recovery’ from the feast of information, I began to reflect on what had compelled me to first click, and then pine for the information that related to a story that could have in no way involved me given that I know no police officers, I don’t know any people within the criminal realm that operate from that particular suburb, and I was not nearby.
My first assumption was that it was so that it was because I have always felt this need to be informed but that begged the question “what was the motive for wanting to be so informed?” It seems “news addiction” was a possibility and not one that was all that uncommon but I thought there must be more to it, a lot more.
Having given it more thought – in particular regarding my coinciding activities (namely, interaction with a number of different social networking mediums), it began to dawn on me that I had discussed the topic, emphasising particularly on the most recent and little known facts, treating it almost as though it added social status.
While news stories and other such happenings were once used merely as social lubricants in the form of “small talk” (as seconded by Ventola), its purpose has evolved. Many people, myself included in this instance, indulge in using their knowledge and ability to stay informed as an indicator of social stature, utilising every instance provided to share their self-gained wealth of knowledge.
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