By Kyra-lin Hom

Jumping into the middle of a good story is difficult. The main characters have already been introduced. The premise has already been laid out. Usually most of the rules of the world have already been established. And it gets harder the more complex the story. So tell me, why do we treat the events of the real world – as complicated and nuanced as stories get – like stand-alone chapters?

For convenience sake, current events have become a quick series of latest news blurbs, quick info splashes with limited context. This style works well for 'meatless' announcements. For example, believe it or not one of the 'top stories' on my droid's news feed was the potential casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Marvel Comic's live version of Dr. Strange. And...yup. That's pretty much all you need to know about that story. If you don't know what any of that means, trust me, you don't care.

But the same can't be said of ISIS or the protests in Hong Kong or the pending verdict on Ferguson. Sure, if you are really up to date, 140 characters might be enough for you. Most of us, not so much. Trying to pick up a newspaper (or hop on a newspaper's website) and read about the day's world events is often like trying to watch Game of Thrones season 3 without having watched the first two: who, what, where and why is that on fire? After a couple minutes, you're probably moving on.

This reporting style did evolve for a reason. Modern man has about the same attention span as a goldfish – actually, less. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (U.S. National Library of Medicine, Associated Press) goldfish have an attention span of 9 seconds. The average human? As of 2013, only 8 seconds. That's a full second less than a kid's carnival prize and a full 4 seconds less than the average person in the year 2000.

News reporting responded to this by shrinking stories and sensationally leading with just about anything to catch our attention. Again, while this works great for announcing Taylor Swift's new album, it it not the platform for reporting on intricate and involved news stories. The Lord of the Rings wouldn't seem quite so epic if we only had every 20th page.

These massively important events that we're short-changing are fascinating. They should be keeping our attention, but as John Oliver pointed out on his comedy news show, Last Week Tonight, it's all about the presentation. (If you haven't seen it, please watch his animal reenactment of the Supreme Court. It is pure genius.) That doesn't mean the New York Times needs to start cussing or that Komo4 should present the news via choreographed song and dance. It does, however, necessitate some creativity and a willingness to adapt.

For example, the average individual no longer avidly follows news stories. We readily jump in and out of current events every few days or weeks as our whims dictate. So why haven't news hubs changed at least their online formats to account for this, perhaps providing recent historical context or glossary-type side bars for their bigger, ongoing stories? Wikipedia shouldn't be a better resource for current events than the news.

Getting our attention isn't just about being flashy. It's also about engaging our minds. Current events are news stories. And just like any other story – real or fiction – they become far more interesting once you actually know what's going on.