As finals season quickly approaches, we’re all looking for something – anything – to take our attention away from writing essays and studying for exams. For many, Buzzfeed is an answer – a website full of listicles and GIFs that serves up our procrastination fix.
Some people – our professors, our parents, journalism snobs – deride the collection of flashy news as sensational, useless and a waste of time. But in actuality, Buzzfeed is more than just a time waster.
A professor of mine reminded our class that students here at GW are all “weird.” Most of us are here because we have at least some interest in politics, which requires us to follow the news. But by and large, the rest of our generation certainly doesn’t follow suit.
A 2012 Pew Poll found that 29 percent of Americans under the age of 25 don’t come in contact with any type of news on a typical day, whether through traditional or new media. The same poll also found that 18 to 29-year-olds spend an average of 45 minutes on news each day. This is far less than older age groups, all of which spend over an hour consuming news every day.
Our generation is struggling to find reasons to keep up with the news – a bad ingredient to mix into a democracy already filled with of partisanship and ignorance.
Here’s where Buzzfeed fits in. Silly articles about cute cats and DIY “hacks” draw in younger people. But that’s just the beginning. The diversity of Buzzfeed – which includes serious, hard-hitting news and longform stories – allows students to learn while procrastinating.
We keep returning to it because it’s entertaining, but whether we realize it or not, we’re also getting a decent dose of current events while we’re there. It’s the same formula the students seized and critics pounced on as “The Daily Show” rose to fame.
Buzzfeed capitalizes on the short attention spans of most of our generation by feeding us quick bursts of information while incorporating Tweets and pictures to hold our interest. Most of the time we don’t even realize that we’re getting something out of surfing the web.
The recent Buzzfeed are “23 Signs You’re Obsessed with Christmas” includes – as expected – a number of pointless gifs and photos, including a dancing holiday Spongebob and pictures of Christmas cats.
Just next to this headline, though, is what’s important. Serious articles are waiting to be clicked and shared. Articles like “The Crisis of Syria’s Refugee Children Grows” and “White House Chief Under Fire” wait beneath. This proves that we really can be productive while we’re allowing ourselves to get distracted.
In fact, believe it or not, there’s a lot to learn on Buzzfeed. The website has placed a new emphasis on investigative reporting, political coverage, foreign news and narrative pieces — all while maintaining the headlines that draw readers in the first place.
Some argue that the news site has dumbed down the news. But what is there to be dumbed down when college kids don’t read any news to begin with? At least we’re walking away with some facts instead of no facts at all.
Even at GW, we aren’t immune to slacking on news consumption. On a busy day I glance at Twitter whenever I can and let CNN babble in the background while doing homework. Ultimately though, schoolwork is more important than the news to most college students — even those of us in the heart of the political world.
So if you can look past “17 Llamas That Are Already Done with Monday,” you might realize that Buzzfeed has something crucial to offer.
The writer, a sophomore majoring in political communication, is a Hatchet columnist.
