On Pausing for Context

The Internet is a wonderful source of information. Whether useful or not, factual or misinformation, opinion or fact, biased or unbiased, or humorous or serious, it is up to users to sort through this informational quagmire.

At one time or another and whether intentional or not, everyone is probably guilty of taking bits of information out of context. In this information world of snippets, context is more important to we realize.

YouTube is an endless vault of video snippets over a vast array of topics. I came across an amusing video, and since the event happened in my friend’s hometown during our college years, I asked him if he remembered it. Since he hadn’t, it sent him the link. I also bookmarked the link as a possible video for a future post, but then I discovered the words of Paul Harvey – the rest of the story.

The video rekindled my friend’s memory and he told me about the event figuring I didn’t know – how although full of laughs on the surface, yet one of torture and sadness when examining the full context of the event. With that knowledge in hand, I found a news article that looked back at both the event and the life thereafter of the one involved.

With the information I now know, there’s no way I could embed the video in one of my posts. But in respect to the person involved in the video, I can encourage others to beware of context as things may not be as they appear – especially in the light of full context. Besides, we know how politicians and the media are great examples of taking things out of context. Yes, some of us still yearn for integrity.