BY SHAFI SAXENA
Chief Brand Officer, News Republic
It is the most abstract and intentional city on Earth,” Dostoevsky said of St. Petersburg, which has been on my bucket list. I am applying for a Russian visa, a complex process which demands pages of information, including a list of countries visited in the last 10 years. I’ve always preferred to roam than to keep score. Until now.
54 countries, 32 in the last 10 years. I have experienced similarities (hopes, fears, joys) and differences (foods, fashions, customs) that unite and divide us. Dostoevsky and travel logistics on my mind, I ponder over the ‘abstract’ - human nature, and the ‘intentional’ - cultures and customs. Intentional has motive, it wants and does.
Abstract does not, it simply is. Borders are intentional. They are created to separate, to codify into ours and theirs, to set up checkpoints which hold change and exchange at bay. Human nature is abstract. While I am on the fence about whether human nature is moral, immoral or amoral despite having read enough existentialism, I know one thing. That it is human nature to be curious.
Curiosity’s craving is why information is so heady. Knowing first, and knowing more than others, is an aspiration that cuts across cultural, demographic and geographic boundaries. I suspect everyone reading this has signed up for breaking news alerts from at least one news source or checks mobile apps, such as News Republic, several times a day to satiate their curiosity about what’s happening around the corner and around the world.
Borders and affiliations divide us, but news connects us. Even when we don’t like each other, we are curious about one another. News helps us make sense of the world and our place within it. At News Republic, we conduct an annual survey on news consumption. Every year, in every country surveyed, ‘To feel connected to the world’ is the top reason for staying informed.
The promise of the World Wide Web was to enable everyone to know everything, but instead, in a world awash with too much information, connectivity is killing connection. Once, we sought content and paid for it. Today, we hide from much of it and refuse to pay for most of it. We are no longer intentional about widening our perspectives.
Hyper-connectivity is pushing us into the safety of our own echo chambers where we narrow the stream from the WWW firehose. We are, distractedly, creating ideological divides that are far more dangerous than geographic borders. If this continues, shouting, shooting and bombing will replace talking, questioning and collaborating. Some argue that they already have.
News is morphing from careful investigation to fast-fed viral infection. As news weakens, so does its role and relevance as a connective tissue for humanity. The virality of grumpy cat videos and celebrity scandals risk turning information into a static that will make humanity’s hair stand on end. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, but the grumpy cat could kill curiosity.
We owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to escape our echo chambers and to be more intentional about our connected conversations.
Stay curious!
Feedback: shafi.saxena@news-republic.com
