Why You Should Care About Current Affairs

It couldn't be easier to follow along.

I know what you’re thinking: I don’t have time to keep up with what’s going on in the world around me. I have to study and see my friends and work and after all that I only barely have enough time to spend three hours a day scrolling Facebook.

Well, you may feel like you're a student on edge but, clever puns aside, bursting your bubble with some current affairs is a lot easier and more beneficial than you might think. Hear me out.

Keeping Up With The K-urrent Affairs

We all have that one infuriating friend or family member who always wins the argument. You know them and they know the facts. There’s nothing worse than wanting to argue with someone but not having enough information to back up what you’re trying to say. Want to change that? There’s a way…

Understanding what is going on in the world around you is not as boring as it seems. Did you know that in Iceland you can only give your baby a name from the approved national register of baby names? Well, you would if you read the news once in a while. Think how many quiz nights you would have won!

For those of you more sentimental readers, reading current affairs is watching history in the making. Tomorrow, today will be the past, and keeping up with current affairs will give you a clue as to how ‘now’ will be remembered. Deep.

The real, inescapable truth of the matter is that the news happens with or without you. We’re all going to vote, get a job, go travelling and live in this world. Why wouldn’t you want to know about the lives of others and how they’re changing your own?

Xavier Hazard is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the contributor program.

Have I Got News For You

Technology has changed so much over the past few decades and information is only the touch of a screen away. You say you don’t have access to the news? I guarantee you do. You’re literally on a site that offers you that very information.

Watching the nightly news is half an hour of your life. Let it play in the background while you do that repetitive study or that boring assignment. Missed it? Watch it online! It’s not engaging? Try alternative news programs like Channel 10’s The Project or SBS2’s The Feed: news without the boring bits!

You can even keep up with current affairs through social media. Follow journalists on Twitter and get your daily fix in 140 characters or less. Sick of your friends’ stories on Snapchat? Check out some of the content on there by Vice, Fox or National Geographic. Click ‘see first’ on Facebook and scrolling your feed will finally become a productive way to spend your time. (Memes and hard news complement each other surprisingly well.)

And if humour’s your thing, why not check out some of the fantastic satirical news programs on YouTube like The Daily Show, The Weekly, Last Week Tonight, Full Frontal and Mad as Hell. Have a laugh and your daily dose of the world all at once.

Or, I don’t know, read a newspaper? I’m kidding. Do those even exist anymore?

TL; DR

It’s really not that hard to keep up with current affairs. Five minutes a day spent looking beyond yourself at the world around you is guaranteed to make your life richer. Let’s prove to those boomers once and for all that young people are more than just homeless, smashed avo enthusiasts. We can make our generation great again.

Xavier Hazard is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the contributor program.

Photo: Universal.