It might be time to cancel your subscription. No, not for this magazine, please. But there are times when we should reevaluate our many subscriptions and decide which ones we desire to keep and which ones we want to cancel. There are even apps that help us keep track of it all.
As far as news is concerned, the options are nearly endless. In my own country, it was not that long ago that three major networks and a handful of leading newspapers provided consumers with over 90% of their daily news intake, which didn’t require much time to absorb. The internet and social media have changed everything. There are currently over 4.5 million total podcasts available globally, with news-related content being one of the largest categories consumed daily. Each news podcast obviously hopes to be unique. Plain news won’t necessarily bring in the subscribers required to profit from ad revenue, so many of these podcasts become news with a twist with words like angle, perspective, take, or view in their show titles. So, it isn’t enough to inform the public about the shooting. The truth surrounding it will be unraveled by the show host with the promise of more to come if you tune in tomorrow. It isn’t enough to report on the war. You need to know the real reasons why it began, why it hasn’t ended, and why you must listen to Friday’s bombshell episode. Amazingly, “the truth” cannot be communicated in two minutes or even twenty. It takes an hour today, another 60 minutes tomorrow and every Monday through Friday thereafter until the next major news story breaks. Every big national or international event must be seized upon to provide the right angle and proper entertainment value for loyal listeners.
As believers, do we ever honestly ask ourselves if what we are ingesting is accurate information? Do we really believe the show hosts to be infallible and their motives altogether honorable? And even if they are, do we properly assess before the Lord, to whom we will give account, how much time we might be wasting?
It might also be helpful for us to examine the fruit of our streaming services. Do they make us feel despair, anger, disgust, frustration or fear? Are we likely to express such feelings online with others, sparking the same emotions within them? This is hardly consistent with Paul’s list of things to focus on in Philippians 4: “Do not be anxious about anything … whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (vv6-8 ESV). Do our streaming services make us feel intellectually or morally superior to other believers who are “less informed”? Pride manifests itself in many ways and Scripture is saturated with warnings about prideful thoughts.
Stepping away from the non-stop stream of tragic, depressing and enraging news can only be for our spiritual good. This is not a plea to put our head in the sand, but our finger on the unsubscribe button. And you may have to hit it more than once.
