Filters

I did not post yesterday. I read something that disturbed me, well, made me think, and then the day took over. So I did not post.

Television
When I was growing up, we had three television stations. Well, there were really four, if you count PBS, and then a fifth after a while, but you get the picture. We had few stations, few programs, few choices. We did not need to filter what was on television – we were able to take in all of the choices and make decisions. Now, there are hundreds of video outlets, cable, satellite, whatever. Most people can't take in that much information and filter choices. Not all of the time.

News
Again, growing up, there was one primary newspaper delivered. Perhaps two in some cities. There were three nightly news programs. Again, not many choices, but it is not hard to take in that information and know what is going on. Now, we have the three news stations, CNN, other cable outlets, the Internet with access to most local papers, and literally thousand of other sources. Some even get their news from talk show hosts, morning television shows. We are getting information about lots of gruesome things. Things that were happening a long time ago. But when you here more about them, you assume these things are more "regular." Again, it is hard to filter the news.

YouTube
Part of the reason I did not write yesterday was a comment about YouTube. It said something about YouTube getting worse, getting to where everything is "same old same old." I would have posted something that was "same old same old" and I just did not want to do that.

YouTube, in which Google paid billions of dollars, has many faults. Its biggest fault, and a fault of blogging sites as well, is that there is not good filtering. There are good videos on YouTube, but most of the videos are, well, not so good. Blog entries are probably the same. Out of a week's worth of posts, I probably have one good post. Well, less than one per week right now. More than one per week on good weeks.

I held the "Battle of the Blogs" to find other good blogging sites, and I really did not find a bunch of sites. At first, I thought it may have been because blogs are getting worse, on average. And then I began thinking, "Is it me?" Perhaps I am the one who is off of my game.

I still think those who can filter better will do well in this new world (with Web 2.0 and all). Me, I don't know. I think I have given myself permission not to post when I think all I can write is a crap post. That might not mean much to some, but for those of us with compulsions about doing something every day, this is a big deal. I just don't want someone to filter some of my crap posts. I will do that myself.