ECI 832 - Post 7 - No News is better than Fake News?

   Well I'm going to be completely honest on this post, I basically do not read, watch or listen to the news.  I don't really know what it is about me, but I live in a tight bubble almost all the time.  To give an example, in my Fall Uni class we did a current events portion of each class at the start and discussed mostly major Canadian happenings.  I was not aware of a single event that we discussed in the whole semester, despite all my classmates seeming very knowledgeable of these latest events.  My facebook feed is very tight, basically winter sports, canoeing groups, dogs, and friends posts.  The odd friend shares a news story about the Ukraine Russian conflict, or fish farms, or hockey fights, but I never click on them.  I believe this is why Twitter feels like standing in an aggressive hail storm to me.  I really feel like most of what is being said is an inside joke that I am not in on, with some rude commentary following.  I listen to podcasts, read many books (fiction and non-fiction), read a few select blogs, and watch the odd streaming show, but consume almost no current news except what is occurring in my community and what others are talking about.  I read a few online articles regarding financial matters just to have some basic economic understandings for long term investment.  Although this may seem abnormal, I might argue that this is likely how people functioned for the last 200'000 years of human evolution, and so it is the normal way to get news, from those around us.  And so consuming endless online perspectives is very foreign to me, or maybe I am a very, very, critical thinker?

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That said I do love to read about history and appreciate the many perspectives that can be played out in the interpretation of past events.  So once something has happened and the noise has died down, I do really love to dive into understanding the situation, the people, the causes, effects, and perspectives.  It is just trying to keep up with current events that seems to make my head spin.  So my main method of sorting fact from fiction is to be completely aware that most information online is skewed, locally unimportant, not true or just presenting one side of the story.  Also the understanding, as Alec stated, trying to swim in the internet river will only cause drowning, so just dip a cup and take a sip periodically, my cup is pretty small I think.  I did strongly agree with Chris B that fake news is a literacy problem much more than a technological problem.  The issue I can't seem to overcome is that the literacy skills it takes to gleen accurate information from any online forum or source is like finding a needle in a stack of straw freshly removed from a barn.
     I know this is not a great perspective as a teacher, especially in teaching digital citizenship, but my main areas of teaching are high school construction and mathematics.  Both these subjects do not lend themselves to exploring current events or online media and so it seems to fit my personal bias to stay focused on very local information, ideas and occurrences. This is also the reason I really struggle with students and people spending so much time on their devices, it just makes little to no sense to me, as there is so much to do and see in the world! This was and is the reason for my Major Project - Ins.peer.tion - ironically done on social media (IG and TikTok).
     Lastly, I basically work (teach, acreage, university), parent, and coach from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed most days, so consuming more than 10 mins of social media and checking the weather is not in my schedule right now.  If I have spare time, I play guitar or go outside to ski or hike...

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I unique in this perspective??

Thanks for reading.