By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

Listen to the news, read the forums, react to a sensational headline, find overblown news stories on Facebook, and you might be afraid to walk outside. There just could be a war zone around the block.

Yet, walking outside you see an entirely different view: the sun is shining, people appear to be at peace and going about their daily lives as if the headlines didn’t exist. And, in fact, they don’t. Not really.

Our over-connected world gives us a very narrow view of daily life. News of a fire here, an accident there, a war in some faraway place collected together and presented in a way that makes it all seem immediate and just around the bend doesn’t accurately portray what’s happening in most of the world. It’s a microcosm trying to explain a macro universe.

When we attempt to find out how others feel about a product or service we turn to reviews and public information places like forums. There we can see the opinions of the few who have posted their thoughts. But those few are exactly that: the vocal, the opinion makers, the happy, the dissatisfied, the angry, the overjoyed. In short, the posters are the extremes.

Our forums or YouTube channel are a great example of this. Look at any popular category and compare the number of viewers to the posters. The ratios are often 10,000:1 which means for every 1 post there are 10,000 views. That’s a lot of people absorbing the opinions of a handful of people.

I like reviews too, but I try and to turn off the news and walk outside. It’s a big world out there.

For more on this story go to: http://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/the-news-cycle-problem/