Why Should We Care About Rumors?
Why do people care about tech rumors?
I should care. I’m a self-described Apple fanboy, gadget freak, geek, programmer and on top of that, a media junkie. So you’d think that I would care deeply about every rumor article, insider’s blog post and pundit’s tweet.
But it is all garbage.
First of all, rumor journalism isn’t very accurate. For a while I kept track of rumor articles and marked which ones were eventually proven to be correct, and which were wrong. Most were wrong. The vast majority were off in some respect?—?like the release date or features of a new product.
In fact, as far as Apple news went, writers that were simply trying to predict the news, based on history and common sense, were usually more correct than those that reported mysterious leaked information.
Then there’s the issue of caring about the rumors. Why should anyone care? Maybe if you are stock trader you feel you can make better trading decisions based on the rumors. Maybe if you work for a large organization and need to make technology purchasing decisions months or years in advance, then I can see it would be important to track rumors as one piece of information that helps you predict future needs.
But for most people, the rumors don’t matter. You can’t buy a new iPhone until it is available. Knowing some information that may or may not be true doesn’t change that. Reading a blog post won’t make an iWatch or iTelevision appear in your house any earlier.
But people do read this stuff, and they do care about it. They assume I care about it and are shocked when I shrug my shoulders and express disinterest.
“But aren’t you excited about the new iProduct!”
“You mean the one that doesn’t exist yet?”
“Well, we know it is coming, right?”
“So?” (Shrug)
When I can buy it and use it, then I’ll get excited. But until then, I have better things to think about. Things I can actually do. Information I can actually act on.
And if I want to spend time reading about things that I can’t act on, I’ll read world and political news. Then at least I’m educating myself, even if the information isn’t something I that affects my daily life.
Or, better yet, I’ll read actual technology news. That is news, not rumors. Articles and posts about things that actually exist. Information about how things work and how I can use them.