You’ve Got Another Thing Coming

by Range Blog Admin on 04/16/2009 at 12:31 pm in Opinion Editorial, Social Media, Within Range

Here’s why I never owned a Judas Priest album:

In 1985, James Vance and Raymond Belknap killed themselves after drinking beer, smoking pot and listening to Judas Priest. In 1990, their parents sued the band for the alleged inclusion of a subliminal message exhorting their deceased sons to commit suicide. Long story short, my mom didn’t want me listening to the apparently undeniable call of suicidal power metal, offering instead to buy me a Petra tape.

It’s difficult to be enthused about Petra when you are much more enthused about Judas Priest, but the point is, hysteria + moms = forced exposure to Christian hard rock. Or kids losing their Twitter accounts.

According to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition (what an ungainly thing to put on your resume!), Twitter and other social networking sites are bad because they have the potential to desensitize people in general and children in particular to other peoples’ suffering. Apparently, the “rapid-fire” headline-refresh destroys a person’s capacity for empathy. Of course, I think this is baloney, of the same brand as the idea that Judas Priest destroys a person’s ability to keep from killing himself. Admittedly, there’s a minute possibility if you really, really hate Judas Priest, but you get what I mean.

I’m not really a fan of Twitter. I think it’s useful if you’re taken hostage by militants, and it should be useful if you are waiting to see overrated bands at SxSW (assuming you can connect it to your phone, which I couldn’t do), but otherwise, it’s just another annoying toy for tweens. From what I’ve seen, what Twitter diminishes is an 11-year old’s capacity to sort out what’s interesting in life and what’s merely self-interesting. If anything, I think Twitter helps a young brain assimilate information more quickly, scanning for what’s relevant and what’s hysterical garbage. Frankly, I don’t think kids need to read a lot of what’s in the news, because a lot of what’s in the news is sensational, biased or fluff. Don’t believe me? Check this out–it’s the most popular stories read by people who also read the one about the Dominos employees who topped a sandwich with extra farts:

People Read Hysterical Stuff

I think we should be more concerned with an national obsession with Schadenfreude than information overload.