Based on the last article this article is supposed to be about your own environment. Have you ever dealt with this? What is your environment made of and how does it shape and influence you?
You may have little or no influence on many factors. You may need to work a job because you need the money to buy things you need and want, or you may be in some other life situation that may not be changeable right now.
But what you can influence and change at any time and relatively easily is the media you consume and that is exactly what this article is about.
People reflect on their environment, including the media they consume and from my own experience I've mostly consumed media where I've learned little or nothing, rather I've been made to consume stuff and be unhappy. That is ultimately the goal of advertising, which comes on almost all channels on TV (apart from public channels such as ARD or ZDF (there is also a lot of nonsense there, such as series or talk shows)).
Werbung bring dich auch dazu, die neuesten Klamotten und immer mehr davon zu wollen. Schau dir die Bilder von mir an, als ich etwa 16 oder 17 Jahre alt war und wie “cool” ich war und das neueste von H&M oder Zara an hatte:
I used to watch mostly entertainment shows. It all started with children's series Nickelodeon, Kika and Great RTL, then went on to football to shows and series by ProSieben and movies (action movies, horror movies, comedy movies, sci-fi movies, etc.). Galileo from ProSieben and Earth X from ZDF were probably the only programs in which I learned a bit about the world.
That has changed for some time now, as I only watch documentaries and science channels.
What? Why? Is not that boring?
That's how I would have reacted in the past if someone had said that to me, but now it's the other way around for me.
When you think about it, Hollywood movies, Netflix series, and TV shows are actually just fake. These things are not real, they are made up. The script is made up (okay, sometimes (very rarely) it's based on a true story), actors just pretend, and the scenarios are often exaggerated, misrepresented, or actually not possible at all. Even with “cool shows” such as Joko and Klaas, things are going well gefakedto draw a lot of attention.
And I watched this because... yes why actually?
To amuse me? To distract me from my boring everyday life for a short time so that I forget him and my problems? To waste 90 minutes of my life on a Disney fantasy film that makes the company even richer?
According to this statistic, people in Germany watch an average of 252 minutes of television per day:
Calculated over a year, that's 91,980 minutes and 1,533 hours or just under 64 days of uninterrupted television per year. And most of what's on TV is just crap.
Have you ever zapped through the channels and thought about what's actually on there?
Celebrity dinner, Germany's next top model, soccer, at home, storm of love, Navy CIS, Love Island, Two and a Half Men, The Simpsons, politics, you name it. Kids probably watch the same channels as I did then + maybe still Disney Channel27. January 2022
Sind das Sendungen, die Menschen über die Welt bilden, auf Probleme aufmerksam machen und Lösungen beschreiben? Sendungen, die sich kritisch mit der Welt auseinandersetzen und Dinge, wie Geld, Handel, Religion, Moral & Ethik etc. hinterfragen? Oder Sendungen, die sich mit verschiedenen Bereichen der Wissenschaft auseinandersetzen, über neue Erkenntnisse berichten oder über das, woran gerade geforscht wird?
Of course not.
Most of it is just complete shit27. January 2022
Add to that the "funny videos" from Facebook and TikTok, the silly videos from Youtube, the "beautiful" pictures from Instagram, and the snaps from your best friends on Snapchat and you're on a planet where most people are mindless consumers with distorted values, who have no idea about science and don't (can't) think critically. They reflect their environment.
What I'm trying to say is that if you spend your whole life watching Hollywood movies, Netflix series, TV shows, Youtube videos about bullshit content, or spend your time on these platforms that promote all sorts of bullshit, they deserve as much attention as possible, then it will influence you and shape your values. Your life will then revolve around the same things.
The same with your friends. Are your friends talking about stocks, football and partying? Your life will probably revolve around the same things or something similar.
alternatives
Honestly, the greatest form of "activism" is to educate yourself properly with science-backed sources.
So with so many people watching irrelevant, unscientific and often over the top news and videos, we need more sane alternatives for that and that's exactly what we offer with our curated tools.
curated news
The news is curated from various sources to remove the clickbait titles and unscientific articles.
Correctiv, network policy, like gravity, world of physics, MedWatch, research and knowledge, Noyb, 3D printing, medicine transparent and Deutschlandfunk knowledge are just a few of the many sources for the system.
curated videos
Under Curated Videos, you'll find videos from different channels and playlists that are aggregated.
In short, maiLab, Terra X Lesch & Co, Doctors Without Borders, DW German, like gravity, VPRO doc, Art, Ultralative, Simple Minds, 100 seconds of physics, Monitor and HYPERBOLE are just a few of the many sources for the system.
VideoNeat
On VideoNeat you will find great documentaries and exciting science courses and also some interesting movies. VideoNeat's materials are only in English, but you can use it to improve your English 😉
These 3 tools, along with the curated tools in English, are my main media sources that I read, watch and listen to.
A few bad/unscientific articles/videos may slip through so be aware, however these curated items are constantly being improved to keep them fresh and scientific. If you still know relevant sources yourself, then you can also tell me to write and i can add them.
From the book "Rethink education“:
“Movies and TV shows have so much success in the world, but most of them are based on fiction and gossip, turning their viewers into beings with little or no understanding of the amazing reality around them.
What if movies were about real scientific events? What if TV shows were factual rather than fictional?
If you want endless stories and complex ideas, just look at reality. From quarks to quasars; living cells to black holes; Galileo to Einstein, the story of the real world is far beyond any story, movie, book or idea.
Imagine that instead of watching a fictional drama, we choose a movie about the life of Nikola Tesla, or instead of watching science fiction movies, we choose movies about the discovery of quarks, atoms, and DNA (the building blocks of us and everything around and in us).
The drama Galileo endured to prove the sky wasn't perfect and the curiosity that led him to be the first to observe a "wandering star" through a telescope and realize it was a world like ours ; ancient Greeks like Aristotle trying to understand the world around them; the life and discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler; the stunning discoveries of Darwin that led to the theory of evolution; Einstein's quest to prove that space has a form; the invention of chemistry and biology; the discovery of tectonic plates and how the earth moves beneath our feet, although we don't usually feel it; Edward Hubbles' discovery that our galaxy is just one of billions of galaxies out there and that the universe is constantly expanding at an ever increasing rate; the existence of so many creatures in the world, as well as those that have died out (eg, dinosaurs); the revelation of quantum physics; the detection of neutrinos; the development of the many amazing technologies that have contributed to human discovery of the world...
I bet many people don't even have the slightest idea of the fascinating complexity of our world; the drama that lies behind scientific endeavor; the incredible discoveries; or the excitement/enthusiasm of new knowledge.
I'm so curious about how humanity and our environments would evolve if we were exposed to such media as much as the misinformation we receive today."
