I admit it. I get the majority (dare I say all?) of my news from the blurbs that pop up on my computer screen. My home screen is msn.com and my email is yahoo. Two news sources from which to glean the top news stories of the day.
As you all know, my computer is a dinosaur. Yes. Money is tight right now for our family. But, I’m also cheap. Very cheap. With some things, anyway. And buying a new computer every….ok, this is embarrassing……every 10 years (I think the one I’m on right now is about 8 years old)….is ridiculous. They should make things that last, right?
Oh, I know my computer is still working but the programs are quickly becoming obsolete. And updating them is almost as expensive as buying a new computer…but I digress. But you’re used to that, right?
Focus, Jane. Focus.
So, I click on a news story that interests me and BAM. I’m locked onto a page, with a video loading. My dinosaur of a computer is trying its darndest to load that sucker before the next load of laundry needs to be shoved into the dryer. And I’m stuck. Watching that silly little twirling-arrow-counting-down thingy. For forever.
So, I get annoyed. And do one of two things.
1.) I walk away from the computer and straighten the playroom, get myself a beverage (sometimes I have time for a hot beverage) and unload and load the dishwasher.
OR
2.) I jam my finger onto the turn on/turn off button on the hard drive and wait for the computer to shut down manually. Then I re-boot the computer, realizing that I will now never know how to stay healthy while traveling or why Kim Kardashian’s marriage (fling?) really broke up.
Sometimes there is a warning. Sometimes I see a little tiny video camera icon that alerts me to the time sucking dangers ahead.
I love those times.
But online journalism has gotten sneaky over the years. Sometimes there isn’t a warning. Sometimes it’s a really clever headline teaser for a really juicy piece of news gossip and I get sucked right in.
I hate those times.
Give me text! For the love of God. Please. No more news videos. Let me scan the information at my leisure. Let me decide if the information is useful or entertaining. Do not, I repeat, do not make me sit through 3 minutes and 45 seconds with your goofy model wanna-be posing as a newscaster, complete with inane banter to tell me something I could have read in 27 seconds.
That’s 3 minutes and 18 seconds of my life wasted. That I will never get back. Not including the 2 minutes and 14 seconds to download the waste-of-time-news-story in the first place.
Don’t do that to me, please.
I beg of you.
And now, dear readers, back to your regularly scheduled blog cruising.
Theycallmejane's Blog 