In the midst of the news coverage of the crazy events surrounding this year’s historical presidential election, protests happening around the country and attacks overseas, many college students find keeping up with news overwhelming or distracting from important worldly events.

College students are busy people, with a large load of coursework, jobs to keep and tons of extracurricular activities, and in many cases, they are too busy to keep up with the news. 

Biology senior Dalton Hall claims the media floods people with irrelevant news rather than reporting on world events that are important for people to know and understand. 

“There are a lot of decisions being made by our government that may or may not be destructive for our society and the news would rather report on irrelevant happenings,” Hall said. “Take the Colin Kaepernick story. The news would rather bash you with their opinion on that than more pressing issues.” 

Citizens are becoming frustrated with the coverage of insignificant events, like the apology that Donald Trump demanded for future Vice President Mike Pence, from the Hamilton cast and producers. People would rather hear news stories that are relevant to the world rather than ones that take away from real news time. News time should be used to educate citizens on what is going on, especially with significant changes being made in the White House in preparation for the new president and his appointees.

Students often feel the media misses the mark on the stories that they choose to cover. Media is often times perceived as being a distraction from important things going on in the world, such as the attacks in Syria. 

Psychology graduate student Elise VanMeter, feels that while it is important to pay attention to current events, it is also difficult because there is so much going on in the world. She feels the news is overwhelming and sometimes hard to understand for most people, especially when they do not have background information.

While it may be difficult to pay attention to the media with its constant use of irrelevant stories, many students do believe that it is still important to know what is going on in the world and to stay aware of significant events.

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