Growing up, I paid attention to the Newspaper once a week – on Sundays for the comics. I didn’t think it mattered much whether I knew what was going on in the world or not. I lived in my own little bubble and I liked it that way. As a kid, I assume that is okay. Kids shouldn’t have to worry about what is happening around the world, but there does come a point where you do need to start paying attention to the world around you.

When I came to college, I had the same mindset of living in my own bubble. Three years later, and I am finally realizing how important the news really is to our lives. I came to this realization when it became a requirement to pay attention to the news everyday and take a current events quiz every Monday for one of my classes. At first, I was annoyed. I was going to have to spend a lot of my free time keeping up to date on the news. Free time that could be spent watching shows on Netflix.

One week into keeping up with the news and I was hooked. I started to become more aware of what was going on around me and around the world. I knew about things that some of my friends were clueless about. It shocked me when I brought up the Zika virus and my friend was oblivious as to what it was. That is when it really hit me: paying attention to the news is important.

If people stay in their own little bubbles, they will continue their lives like nothing is wrong in this world, but that is not true. There is so much going on in this world that people need to be aware of. I know several people who don’t even know about the attacks that have been going on in Europe on and off for the past year.

Keeping up with the news is important and it gets more important the older you get. College students need to keep updated. Especially this year when there is a Presidential Election coming up. People are not going to know who to vote for if they do not keep up with what is going on in the election and that is truly horrifying.

News is important and things are constantly changing around the world. Us college students need to keep informed and know what is going on, especially if we want to speak our mind about things in the news on social media. We need to be well aware of what we are talking about and know all sides to a story before we state our mind. It is important to know what we are talking about and to know what is going on around us. We need to start paying attention and caring about what is happening with the rest of the world and stop caring so much about what is going to happen on the next episode of the show we are currently watching on Netflix.