Laura Hendriks

A Good Day to Know it All

Being up to date with the news used to be a choice, now it is expected. Slowly, an obsession with the news is growing and a fear of missing out grows along with it.

A good day for me has no worries. A productive day at school, a clean room, a perfectly good cooked meal, and no news about how the world is gonna end, or how tens of people died in a protest or a plane crash or a war or a shooting or a flood. It ends with a calm evening accompanied by my favorite album playing from my cd player and a realization that I might indeed be living the best years of my life. The end of the world might be near, but not today!

News is everywhere, all the time. Screens on the street tell you what is going on, 24/7 news broadcasts make sure you don't miss anything, and you can't go on social media without learning about what has happened. The obsession with news is led by a fear of not being able to join conversations, missing updates, and not reading enough articles. There is a need to know everything that is going on because “it’s important to stay up to date”, but in the end we have no idea what to do with the new information and we are left with worry and stress nagging at us as we don’t have the power to actually change it. #FONKIA (Fear Of Not Knowing It All) is a project that showcases these feelings and fears of missing out on the news and shows a new side of this obsession and the people involved with it.