There’s a funny contradiction we don’t talk about enough. We spend a lot of time worrying about how much our kids are on social media and the risks that come with it. What gets less airtime is that the adults are right there with them. I’m absolutely part of the problem. Left to my own devices, I’ll choose an hour of scrolling over a movie without thinking twice.
That really came into focus for me after reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt last year. The book digs into the impact of phones and social media on adolescent mental health, but it also made me look in the mirror a bit. I loved it, and it pushed me to be more intentional about putting my phone down and being present.
Every year I take a month off social media just to prove to myself that I can. This year I went two months, cold turkey, outside of LinkedIn for work. And during that stretch, the thing I missed most wasn’t entertainment or even connection in the traditional sense. It was simply knowing what was going on in the village.
That absence made something really clear to me: not everyone is on social media, and even for those who are, it’s not a reliable way to stay informed. If we actually care about being a connected community, we need shared, trustworthy places to go for information. That’s where local journalism comes in.
Now, to be clear, I am not a journalist. I’m just a random guy who writes a column and occasionally hits “submit” with a level of confidence that probably exceeds my qualifications. Which is exactly the point. There’s a difference between people like me sharing thoughts and actual reporters doing the work to get the facts right.
Social media is great at what it does. It’s fast, it’s immediate, and it’s perfect for quick-hit updates. New pizza place on South Boulevard? Social media is going to break that news before the ovens are even fully hot. But it’s not built for depth, verification, or accountability. It’s a running stream of reactions, not a source of record.
If you want to understand something complicated or important — like what’s really going on with West Suburban Hospital — a random Facebook group isn’t the place to go. That’s the kind of story that requires reporting, context, and follow-up. It requires journalists doing actual work.
That’s why outlets like Wednesday Journal matter so much. They’re not just another voice in the noise. They’re one of the few places committed to getting the story right, especially for the people in our community who aren’t plugged into social media at all. They’re a connective thread in a village that can otherwise feel fragmented.
And the reality is, that thread is getting thinner. The newspaper industry has been hit hard by the internet. Nearly 150 papers closed last year alone, and there’s no reason to think that trend is slowing down.
If we want to keep a reliable source of local news, we have to treat it like something worth supporting. Social media will always be there for the quick hits. But if we lose the people doing the deeper reporting, we lose something much harder to replace: a shared understanding of what’s actually happening in our community.