RSS/Web has made the world smaller ... but!

Somebody out in the blogging world (I will find it later) recently said that whilst they now have greater amounts information coming to them via this computer-thingy and they feel that they know a lot more than before it's at a much shallower level.

I can go with that. With my online desktop (Netvibes) it's so easy to subscribe to RSS feeds that I feel I have a plethora of headlines appearing before me. But that's just it, they're headlines and even when I click to read the article I'm left at the end of the day feeling I haven't really got to the bottom of stuff.

And I think it's because I am reading, nearly every "news" item I go to is text based.

With the wireless and televisual presentations of the news I receive sooo much more than just the words. The moving picture, of course, tells so much more than my Web based 1,000 words but the spoken expression imparts more than the words being used - the "music" behind the words supply information that just isn't available when you read it (it's why we had to invent emoticons :-) and why we regularly suffer from, "I don't mean that in that email, sorry!")

Of course we had the written word far earlier (and for much longer) than words and pictures over the ether - newspapers. But I suspect that if I now returned to newspapers I would say the same thing - I'm not getting enough info! (I gave up NZ newspapers a year or so ago, they are just pathetic) With the Web at least I have the perception of being able to "drill down" and find out more information - I suspect it's merely a perception though.

All of that is about depth of knowledge around a particular story. I do, however, have a completely different theory about breadth of knowledge around what's happening in this world (why in this world but on this earth). I don't think I'm missing out on much that is world-wide news - there's just not that much that happens on a daily basis. Oh I'm sure there's buckets happening in your life (as there is mine) but on an "importance" level to others not in your immediate circle probably not that high. Take a look at the headlines the day you read this - how much is actually happening around the world ... go on, count the events - not much really is it?

Of course you have probably used the news media (like I did) to check out what's going down on this planet. If they don't report it, it ain't news - it's just something that happened. There's loads happening but not much "news", that's more like it.

So, in summary. Whilst I read most of the world "news" I get to learn little about what's happening in any great detail.