Local Information and a Quick Quiz

Last week, when I wrote about the Hops and Harvest Festival, I received an interesting message from a reader.

Reader: Hey, I read your article this morning. Something I found really interesting is that I had not heard the Harvest and Hops festival was going on this weekend until THIS morning when I read this. Just makes me think how fragmented the information we receive is, which in my mind is all sorts of problematic. Just food for thought.

Me: Wow! I have felt inundated by it. That’s really good to know. I assumed they were coming across to everyone this way. That is really food for thought, thank you.

Reader: Yep it really made me think especially since you and I would probably see similar things. What we see is really creating our reality.

Wow.

Cognitively, I knew that our experience on the internet is carefully tailored according to all the choices we make - - carefully monitored by those “cookies” we are always hearing about. And yet I still thought that if I was seeing all those posts for the Hops and Harvest Festival, that everyone was. Well, everyone in the Columbia/HoCo market, I guess.

Now that I think about it, those two concepts are dissonant. We aren’t all seeing the same things. We are creating our own realities. Or perhaps, we are being carefully led to do that. We all have our own anecdotes about odd things that the internet seems to think we want to purchase. Back in 2020 I was plagued for several weeks for adverts from a candy company.

I never dreamed that being married to a man from Belfast, Northern Ireland would lead to this sort of cheeky solicitation.

But, to be more serious, what does this mean for the dispersal of local information? We don’t have our own radio station or television station. We don’t truly have a local newspaper. Even if we did, not everyone would read it. And, through the magic of the internet, I could see an announcement for the Hops and Harvest festival eighty-seven times and you might not see it even once.

Now, you could say, based on your personal experience, “I would have gone but I never saw anything about it. It’s too bad they didn’t have more publicity.” Whereas I’d be saying, “Oh, man! They’re promoting this everywhere. Do they ever rest?” And we’d both be right.

If you figured this out long ago and have completely worked out all its implications then you are far ahead of me. I guess I knew but I just didn’t follow the facts to their logical conclusion.

So, in light of all that, I have a quick quiz for you today. One question:

Do you know that Grassroots has moved?

List your responses here.

And there’s always room for your comments, too.

Village Green/Town² Comments

Comments

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