Messages from the media, texts, and emails, are we just too overloaded?

I live in a society that I believe is inundated with constant emails, texts, facebook messages and media, but somehow I managed to escape the magnitude of the tragedy in Japan last weekend.

Surprisingly enough, I wasn’t the only one. I asked ten people when they started paying attention to all the news coverage of what was happening in Japan and about eight of the ten said Monday morning.

Do our minds get so overloaded that we just zip through whatever messages we don’t think apply to us? Or are we as Americans so self absorbed in our daily lives that we turn our heads to the tragedies in other countries? Perhaps it is a little of both.

It wasn’t until I started thinking about this particular incident that it occurred to me that every day in newspapers around the nation, there are stories about tragedies affecting other countries. I usually skim through the headlines and move onto the local news.  I do this partly because of time, but honestly, I skim through there because I feel like those articles don’t really apply to me.

Technology has allowed us to be so accessible that at times, I want a media blackout. I’d never really thought of this concept until a former co-worker, who works in the journalism field, posted it in her status when she went on vacation. 

Not only do we have constant access to the changing headlines, but we can have text updates and email updates alerting us for just about anything. How much can one person’s brain actually digest? Like I said, I managed to miss just about all coverage on Saturday.  I’m sure it was on the television that was playing when I was at lunch, and I know I glossed over some Facebook entries that referred to “the poor people of Japan.” But I didn’t actually sit down and read about it until I got back to work on Monday.

Are there other people experiencing this same view? Are we so wrapped up in everything in our own lives that we don’t see the necessity of tuning in to see what is happening around us? Or are we just so overloaded that we just can absorb all there is to read and learn? Your thoughts?