Merriam Webster defines lifespan as – the average length of life of a kind of organism or of a material object especially in a particular environment or under specified circumstances. That implies it could be the amount and duration of time any data or information lives and is considered new, recent or relevant at that point in time.

Come to think of it, it’s incredible to see how the lifespans of what we consume as information these days is constantly changing and evolving with our times.

Here’s some food for thought-

The mediums of disseminating information have evolved through the times and how we consume and preserve this data has concurrently changed with it. Originally, our primary source of information came from books. We depended on those hardcopy books to refer about all things under the sun and they monopolized our attention lingering on as a living document for several years. They had the longest lifespan and served as our single most relevant source of gathering data and assimilating information. With changing times, our sources for gathering information diversified, creating myriad absorption avenues and each constantly competing for our attention.

Consequently, what we consider as hot, current or relevant information keeps condensing and their lifespan shrinking. We tend to absorb information from one source and swiftly move onto the next source that wins our attention. The technological advances have been instrumental in defining how and for how long a document lives and is considered relevant by its audience.

For better or for worse, we are living in an age that’s constantly engulfed by competing information. The constant stream of data never sleeps! Turn on your Twitter handle or browse your Facebook Wall at 2am, the stream of information flows ceaselessly. When you dip your feet in the Twitter stream at 2am, you automatically start participating in what is considered hot and current at that point in time. Interestingly, what is considered relevant now becomes passé fours hours later. You have now moved onto the next new thing!

What does that tell you about how we consume information in this day and age? Is it this information overload that is causing their lifespans to shrink? Has our attention span decreased or have we become more impatient wanting to move onto the ‘next thing’ as a result?

What do you think, what are your viewpoints?

Photos by Steve Bailey and Andreas Lunde

We have come a long way from that definition and social media has played a catalytic role in this process. Every morning I wake up to ‘Morning Express’ with Robin Meade on CNN’s HLN (Headline News). Apart from getting my daily dose of news, what interested me was their tagline “We give you the news. You give us your views”. I realized that the power of agenda setting has shifted gears. Social media had permeated its way into the broadcasting industry revolutionizing how news is created and disseminated today. They too are adopting the new social media strategy of listening and engaging versus the old fashioned dogmatic methods of push strategy when it comes to news and information.

News channels today are opening the doors to their audience asking them for their opinions. They share the worldly happenings with their public and welcome them to give their feedback regarding it. They are interested in knowing what the people think and have to say regarding the events of the day and encourage them to reach out using the social media channels. These days we can, not only pick up the phone to call the news stations but have myriad resources at our disposal to communicate back. We can choose to email back, tweet about our thoughts (on Twitter), leave our comments on their Facebook fan page, blog about it or even publish a YouTube video sharing our opinions. This then becomes a reciprocal process of action and reaction based on live and instant conversations. We as an audience today get to choose and decide what is newsworthy and play an active role in that process.

So what does that mean? How does that affect us? It affects us at a very fundamental level. It allows the layman to have a voice and more importantly be heard. It gives us the opportunity to get involved and be engaged in the news making process. With the ability to participate in these conversations through these social media sites, the viewers start taking deeper interest, become more socially aware and become active gatekeepers in their community. Look around, current instances of any breaking news many a times are foremost gathered by a witness who just happens to be there. Be it the initial images of a tropical storm, live relay of a plane accident or a humorous celebrity faux-pas moment, is first witnessed by a viewer who captures it on his camera phone and streams it on YouTube or iReport on CNN.com. Soon enough it is picked up by several news channels making it a newsflash breaking news. Content is no longer the fiefdom of the powerful few but is becoming more egalitarian. And its people like you and me who get a voice and hold the reins to what we define as news today!

Photos by ABC Archives and Kino-eye