Are We On Media Overload?
Are we so overloaded with media during this election season that we are missing key information?

By  Clara Pierre Reeves

My excuse is illness---myositis, a muscle-wasting disease whose treatment and complications put me out of action for long stretches during the last couple of years. A chronic health condition tends to narrow one’s focus to the pain, the meds, the hospital or rehab routine. The “outside” world is limited to occasional visitors. Newspapers lie in an unread stack at the foot of the bed.

So when I first reached for the latest New York Times from the top of the pile, I knew that I was ready to break out of my information cocoon. Suddenly insatiable, I devoured every detail of the presidential campaigns. This was a sign that I was better physically. But in the hospital I was still somewhat cut off from the world of instant information. I couldn’t wait to be immersed in the 24/7 news cycle.

When at last I was allowed to go home, my friends were in just the opposite state: they were experiencing information overload. After two weeks of Democratic and Republican convention watching, they complained of being worn down by endless hours of speeches and incessant commentary on TV and online, followed by blogs, News Feed, YouTube, Digg, Twitter and whatever other electronic bulletins had attracted their attention at the time.

After a few days of scrambling to fill in my own information blanks, I started to feel the effects of overload as well. When I had absorbed all I could about the candidates and their running mates, I paused to reflect: had all that time in the hospital been such a waste? Had I missed so much after all?

Sociologists maintain that 24/7 reporting blunts our sensibilities. Unlimited access to media buzz via modern communications technology can blur our judgment and even shut it down completely. Constant updating is arguably the worst culprit, along with the media’s obsession with reporting minutiae.

Consider the Sarah Palin coverage. I had missed some of the reporting on her background, like her waffling on the “Bridge to Nowhere,” but in my early attempts to catch up with the news on the Republican vice presidential nominee, I stumbled upon the Fox News video “Get the Palin Look.” Fox was now focused on Palin trivia—her eyeglasses, for one thing. Are they wire-framed or rimless? Obama hasn’t yet reached the same level of scrutiny, but there have been attempts, like the flap over his connection—and later rift—with his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Such “news nuggets” bring home the real question: Can we allow ourselves to be so inundated with ephemera that we’re no longer able to judge what’s important in an event as crucial as the upcoming election? Observing my media-addicted friends, I had to wonder whether Palin’s eyeglass frames and Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright had diverted them from examining tough issues. Had my friends lost something by being too close to day-to-day political happenings? Had my information gap given me a more clear-eyed perspective than theirs?

The cliché about travel lending perspective is true. And long-term illness is a kind of travel, first into, then out of yourself. The slowing down it enforces often provides an overview of one’s past, and of history itself. Now, by intentionally stepping back from addictive news-cramming, I was at liberty to think about the social changes that have taken place during my lifetime.

Only by looking back at the momentous breakthroughs I had witnessed and participated in--the changing attitudes toward racial equality embodied in Brown v. Board of Education, the women’s liberation and gay rights movements--could I see that profound social progress happens slowly. Very slowly.

We all know that November is no politics-as-usual election. There is an unfamiliar jolt to it, as though the past half-century has led the nation to this exceptional turning-point in history. Enough spadework has been done on the issues of ethnicity and women in power. It only remains to elect the candidate who will bring these issues to fruition through affirmative court decisions and legislation.

Never before have I felt my vote to be so critical. From my new perspective, it represents an opportunity to carry forward all the social gains that I and others like me have taken for granted, lived with and profited by, all these years. From this perspective I feel connected to the most important presidential election of my 68 years.

I credit my illness with that.

Clara Pierre Reeves, a magazine writer, taught at New York University for 17 years. She is completing her fourth book, a historical novel.