Every once in a while, I try to do things that make me feel like an adult. I take the trash out, I trek to Fresh Grocer to buy food for my room and I go all the way to the basement of the quad to do my laundry. And sometimes, I even try to read the news. Nothing makes me feel like a real person more than learning about what the fuck is going on in China, staying up to date with the presidential race or what the price of oil is nowadays. Still though, I kind of suck at it. Most of the time, when I try to read the news, it takes so long to sift through all of the bullshit that by the time I find something I'm actually interested in, I'm out of time or already bored. Other times, different newspapers have so many sections that I have no idea what pages to open (and by that, I mean click on). Lucky for me though, Quartz cuts out all this bullshit and gets right to the point, which is exactly why it should be your new way of following the news.
How it works:
Quartz is an interactive, easy and fast way of getting the world's latest news. Using Quartz is like texting a computer to give you news. As soon as you open the app, Quartz will send you a headline that links to articles from various news sites, in an iMessage kind of style. You can respond to the headline by sending one of the two messages at the bottom of the screen. One message basically means “tell me more”—though the actual message could be phrased as a follow–up question or a few related emojis, and the other always says “anything else?” (Ed. note: Read that in Bon Qui Qui's voice.)
Send the first message if you’re interested in the headline and it will send you more articles about that topic. If you couldn't give a shit, just click “anything else?” and it will send you a different headline. Within 5–10 minutes of using Quartz, you instantly and easily get the news from around the world.
The one caveat that I didn't realize going in was that Quartz focuses more on economic news, rather than social issues. So while a Whartonite might be into every post, your average English major might end up hitting "anything else?" over and over, until they give up and just read the Skimm.
The biggest bonus, though, is that with the iMessage style, Quartz makes it look like you’re texting. So next time you're in one of those awkward situations where you need to pretend to text, just open Quartz and catch up on the news instead.
