News to go

By now it's no big news (pun may or may not be intended) that the way we consume news has drastically changed over the past centuries even years.

While the public still considers traditional media to be more trustworthy, social media are continually increasing their influence in our everyday life. Twitter, Facebook, news apps... they all offer what you could call "news to go": news condensed to bits of information (ideally to the most important facts and figures) going along with a fitting picture. If it's a job well done the number of followers will increase and if it's a job done even better those followers will feel tempted to click the link leading to the longer news story.

Put together these mini-news offer a constantly updated newsfeed, similar to a liveticker.
So, instead of detailed analyses and overviews it is short news articles that are preferred as they enable us to obtain new information faster and thus making them easier to digest.

But what does this tell us about our society? Have people become so lazy that any effort put into thinking on their own is too much? Or is it maybe that it could also be seen as a sign that values have changed over time - as they so often do. After all, short and more condensed news enable us to read faster and thus give us the extra time to read more news from other sources. This, in turn, provides the possiblity to consider different point of views and perspective before forming one's own opinion - or altering it in the process. All this is taken from a rather optimistic point of view but in my opinion we should not condemn every new challenge and try to see the most terrible outcome in everything. Being critical is more than doubt and mistrust, it's also about acknowledging potential.

All the while, however, studies still prove that the original news sources are taken more seriously. But nonetheless it could and should be of interest to observe whether a shift in trustworthiness will take place over time, granting the unofficial but more organic news more popularity.