Do you form your opinions or does your routine do it for you?

How many of us vary our media consumption?

If you are a Marie Claire reader do you ever pick up The Deal?
If you watch Sunrise do you ever give SBS a go?
If you are a 2Day listener, do you ever switch to 2GB?

The reason I ask this is because I consider myself a pretty 'standard' media consumer. I'd be one of those people that lies squarely in the midddle of the bell curve when it comes to average media consumption and last night I recognised a massive problem with this.

My boyfriend Matt, is a night driver so he listens to a lot of night radio. He is also disloyal when it comes to his media consumption. He just acts as a bit of a sponge and consumes as much as possible from varied sources which results in him being able to participate in any conversation with a well informed point of view (this is incredibly frustrating for me).

Last night he made me sit in front of the computer and listen to an interview that Alan Jones had conducted yesterday morning. It was with an academic expert who talked about climate change and offered a completely different point of view (backed with research) than what I have heard through all of the media that I consume.

It highlighted how ignorant and easily influenced I am by what I hear/read in my 'routine' consumption. Its actually quite scary.

I wonder if we, as media advisors should be varying our routine a bit more. Maybe its somthing along the lines of '>Tim & Brad's 30 things in 30 days project to help us be better aware of whats happening around us and what other people are being influenced by.