Do You Follow Current Events?

[CoreyFreeman]

I was just wondering what you guys think of people who aren't necessarily up-to-date on a bunch of current events.

For example, I personally don't follow the news that closely unless something MAJOR (hurricane, earthquake, 9/11, stuff involving violent monkeys) happens. I sometimes intentionally avoid news (Occupy WallStreet) because it seems like "debate fodder." It's not necessarily that I prefer being "ignorant" but rather that my interests don't typically lie in politics/discussing current events. And aside from grabbing a sign and protesting or calling some office and volunteering, there's not much I can actually DO to affect such events.

Do you guys follow current events? Do you think it's wrong not to?

[SophieM]

Well as I'm doing an Economics and Politics degree, it is pretty mandatory for me to follow current affairs.

I enjoy debating too, so I like listening to the various sides of the argument.

[Lost_in_moscow]

Unless you have a job the requires you to keep up-to-date on major and/or other world politics and events. Then no, I personally keep track of only that which holds interest to me since I have enough things to deal with throughout my day.

I however do try and keep semi informed about events that could potentially effect the direction of my investments like the death of the NK strongman Kim Jong II which has caused a drop in the Asian markets, which in turn has an effect on the other markets.

In the end I have noticed that people will mainly be up-to-date of only things that interest them. Not only about current events but things in general like I've got friends who know every car model planned to be released next year, or I have another who finds out everything about Apple before i think even Apple themselves know about it. Yet I don't care for such things. I have different priorities.

[Lost_in_moscow]

About protests. This is my opinion on the matter: those who don't know how to effectively use their energy and time in helping a cause attain that what it seeks will go out in the streets chanting and beating their chests in anger like apes. Like little boys who still don't understand how to effectively show that they like the girl so they usually end up showing it in physical contact; pinching them, pulling their hair, etc. though in no way I'm calling the protestors little kids.
Also, I'm not saying these are any less important then those people who attempt to achieve the same thing but say through meeting with high level decision makers. Street protest can bring it into perspective the scale of the movement. And decision makers fear rampant chaos so i'm in no way saying protesting out in the street is ineffective, I'm just saying everyone has their roll, since usually there is little if any coverage about the high level meetings until a decision is publicly announced.

[JWinvestments]

Pretty important for what I do, even stuff which seems pretty irrelevant affects stock prices, such as the death of a communist dictator.

[Phil]

I do, because I like to know what's going on in the world if I ever do have to debate something. However, all you really need to do to stay up to date is scan the headlines of any major paper online or even just google news-unless you're interested, I don't bother reading the full article.

[TBFMentor]

It has been said that leaders are readers. I believe that people who stay current on relevant trends and topics, possess the ability to quick respond and take advantage of the opportunities they bring. With that said, I'd encourage subscribing to smartbriefs as a way to do that. Specifically the one for entrepreneurs: http://bit.ly/m6mzeR

[Starog]

I'm similar to Corey, if there's something major going on, then I watch then news. I avoid news if something irritating is going on or if they've mentioned too much about it that it becomes pointless.

I usually only intend to watch the news if I've seen something that interests me online. Tumblr is great for finding things out and then I top up the knowledge by watching the news. I am finding the Euro thing quite interesting, I catch up with it every few days, mainly because what happens is really going to change things in Europe and I find it funny the way some countries behave.

It's probably a good thing to watch the news but more often than not I find it depressing/pathetic/stupid. News readers really do ask some dumb questions sometimes. "So you must have had quite a shock when that car went through your shop window?", "Do you feel lucky it didn't hit you?". I mean really, if thats all you can ask, don't bother.

[JWinvestments]

The worst are the worthless news reports; like "Timmy had a big problem, every day he was walking home, and he kept having apples fall on him, then Timmy came up with a solution, don't keep walking under the apple tree... we have our reporter Chad Nickels interviewing him now, what's up Chad?"

[Geek]

I don't, but I know I should. I just feel like I'm doing it wrong when I'm not reading news, blogs, etc.