By: Bikal Dhungel
This article focuses on Nepalese Journalism. 10 years ago, only a
very tiny fraction of people knew how to use computers. Most of them
could not afford to buy it. Today, the portion of people using
computer has increased drastically. 10 years ago, one could count the
printed version of newspapers and magazines. So, the majority of them
published useful things mostly. Today, as the number of people using
computer and internet increased, the number of news websites also
increased. It is difficult to name all the news websites. Most of
them are biased and based on personal opinions instead of facts based
on evidences. This possess a danger of mass brain-washing. An average
reader considers that whatever gets published in internet is true.
Misusing this, any political party or organisation or any other
individual is in a position to use it for their own profit without
regarding societal consequences. Even the intellectual group spends a
large amount of time reading news that is infact of no relevance.
Economically saying, this kind of activities is very bad for
productivity and growth because people spend a share of their time
reading these stuffs which can help them in no way. They could use
this time in some productive activity. Lets take an example: You
spend 3 hours a day going through such websites reading and
commenting about it. It means that in a year, you spend 1095 hours.
This means, 45.6 days in a year, you spend on reading such news. How
did it help you ? Do you really need it ? Could you try to remember
any four news from last year ? So, wasn't it a waste of time then ? I
do not mean that you should not read any news. It is of course
important as you should get up-to-date with what is going on in the
world. But once you understand how the world functions, being updated
makes less sense. If something really important happens, like the
Ebola Outbreak, or Financial Crisis or a terrorist attack in New
York, you will hear it from multiple people. So, you wont miss
anything important. However, if you spend time on any topic for some
time for example reading a book about Linear Algebra or Behavioral
Psychology or Political Economy, you will hardly forget it. You can
read regularly about what you are specializing in but you should
question yourself, ' Is it really relevant to me what I am reading ?
' Exactly this is what I meant by Nepalese websites. I rarely find
any website that is publishing news being neutral. All of them is
full with negative publications which is very toxic to our mind. In
the long term, this will install hate in our minds and at the end, we
are much worse off.
Freedom of Press is important and press is an important organ of a
functioning society. This is why Press Freedom is mostly secured by
basic constitution in all democratic countries but this does not mean
that everybody can publish and spread anything they wish to. For
countries with diverse ethnic groups, it can cause a threat of
violence which is already visible in Nepal. Some ethnic groups are
bashing others for the ill policies of the past and there is really
an online war going on between these groups. A normal person who
follows such threads regularly will wake up one day with mind full of
hate towards others and by this way, the perpetual peace might never
come into existence. Understandings once broken can rarely be
re-installed again.
Noone can limit the freedom of others but it should be in the mind
of the individual how he/she wants to grow up, a mind full of hate
and prejudice or taking the side of love.
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