Newsflash: Teens Don't Care About the News

I would have told them that for free, but I suppose Harvard's got to do its own thing.

A key bit:

The poll, which had a margin of error of 2 percent to 3 percent, suggested that younger Americans may pay less attention to news because only one in 20 respondents claimed to “rely heavily” on a daily newspaper.

Additionally, the spread of soft news about pop culture is considered to have lured away young readers from hard news stories on politics and global events.

Predictably, the story digs up a quote from someone who blames it on the Internet. While I think that it's undeniable that the Internet allows people to filter their news, I think this sort of study and the folks who ask these questions are missing the point:

Why do people - young or old - choose to filter their news to match their political beliefs in the first place?

Looking for a technical solution (or even viewing the problem through a technological lens) to what is a decidedly non-technological problem seems foolish. So: Why do people feel the need or desire to filter their news, especially to make it match their existing political views?

I instinctively go for this answer: Because people aren't used to having their beliefs challenged. Having one's beliefs challenged - as opposed to reinforced - forces people to really think. And frankly, since I'm of the opinion that the American educational system actually represses critical thinking rather than foster it (at least from grade 6 on), I understand why people react the same way to challenging information they do to a bright light: They cringe, backpedal, and close their eyes.

Also, I think avoiding the news is a perfectly rational and understandable response to the news itself: I mean, have you watched that shit lately? All the serious stories are downers, and all the happy stories are about relatively inconsequential things. If I'm a high school student, why bother?

All this is a roundabout way of saying that people really like blaming us young'uns for not watching the news, but maybe they - and we - should start realizing the news sucks, and that something should be done about that. Trying to get more teens involved doesn't really get at the root of the problem.