The news is always changing, developing, and affecting the world both positively and negatively. It is important to stay informed on it, as it could easily be affecting your family, friends, and your own life. By following the news, viewers gain the ability to base their future decisions on more plausible and realistic information and be able to identify most of the threats and opportunities starting from an early stage. Understanding the news is crucial to maintaining a well-rounded outlook on life. Staying up to date with the news broadens your knowledge, enables you to obtain informed opinions, and engage in more meaningful conversations. It is an essential in today’s society.
“I sometimes watch the news with my family while we’re eating dinner,” said Freshman Tiana Mell. “I’ve read magazines and seen newsworthy posts on social media, but I’ve never actually read a physical newspaper.”
Almost all of today’s younger generations have never, and will never read a physical copy of a newspaper. Some will read the news on online news sites, like newyorktimes.com or wallstreetjournal.com, but some even find that to be a waste of time. Today’s older generations have incorporated reading the newspaper or learning about the daily news in another form into their everyday schedules. They grew up getting excited about reading the paper as soon as it came out and would fight with their siblings and friends to be the first ones to get their hands on it. Young people today would much rather be putting their energy into something else.
“My parents stay aware of the news and make sure that I know what is going on in the world just by telling me,” said Freshman Yohanna Dawit. “I know that the news is super important for people to know, and I think that people need to be more invested in it.”
Without learning about the news, society will never be able to have a full perspective about what is happening around the world, and what they believe in. Without paying attention to the news, no one will be able to fight for what they think is right or fight against what they believe is wrong. If no one knows about the current events, nothing in the world will ever differ, and nothing will ever modernize. Society will go on just like it is today, and the current issues that we are facing, such as racism, starvation, and climate change will not get any better. By staying up to date with the news, you will be able to help the world in ways that a lot of people will never be able to.
“Knowing what is going on in the world personally makes me feel powerful and satisfied with myself because I know that I have an advantage on most people my age,” said junior Paige Rauen. “I feel like students would be so much more educated if they had even a general sense of the world.”
Students at Eaglecrest and other schools could get better grades in many of their classes, and have the opportunity to excel when getting accepted into a specific college, and when applying for certain jobs. They could relate a lot of the topics they are studying or writing about to current events, therefore providing greater evidence and reasoning for their topics, themes, etc. Their general understanding of society would increase and therefore expand their chances of making an impact on the world and living their lives to their fullest potential. It is fair to be worried about the depressing information that you see on the news and not want to interact with it because it puts you down. You may even become annoyed with all of the celebrity gossip that companies are calling “news”, or with lying politicians. That being said, all of this is still crucial information for you to have in the back of your mind. Democracy could never work, let alone thrive without news stations reporting on current affairs. Newspapers and news media sources ensure that citizens of specific places make responsible decisions rather than acting out of ignorance and misinformation. News information also ensures that elected representatives uphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those who elected them. The news that people read is likely to be what affects them the most.
“Focusing on the news as much as a lot of adults do is something that is hard for a lot of people our age,” said freshman Demi Morris. “If the news was more relevant to teenagers, then maybe we would read more of it.”
Topics in the news typically regard urgent problems and different impacting events that are going on in a certain area or field. Other pieces of news target different age groups and types of people. If teenagers would dig into the news a little bit deeper, I believe that they would find a lot that they connect or identify with that they did not know were such serious deals around the world today as they would have assumed. Everything that is going on in society is constantly being reported on and written about so that people who relate to those topics do not feel so alone and get a sense of just what is going on with their needs and desires.
Checking on the news at least once a day and simply browsing over some of the trending articles is good enough for anyone to adopt a general understanding of current events, develop a more open mindset about the world, and make you more curious and aware of what is going on around you. The benefits of focusing on the news from time to time are tremendous. Students can discover a lot in any piece of news that they examine, whilst thoroughly enjoying the content that they are viewing. News is an essential part of society today.
