I think it's time to give a "news detox" a try
I've spent the past months with an unhealthy obsession with "the news", due to both an election in my own country and the one in the US. Maybe it was an attempt at being in control of a situation I have absolutely zero control over, despite it shaping aspects of the world I really care about. But that control is an illusion.
I've rediscovered an older article by Rolf Dobelli called "Avoid News – Towards a Healthy News Diet". It argues against the value of high-frequency (daily) news consumption in 15 points. It does not vilify journalism as a whole, however, arguing for replacing a daily feed of online news with individual, high-quality, in-depth articles consumed weekly or so.
I know that I probably can't resist having some idea of what is going on in the world (and I have some niche interests that I genuinely find productive to keep up with). So I'll try something simple: No "news" (quotes because I include random social media feeds in this) during weekdays. No news websites, no tildes, no reddit. There's ways to filter for the top posts of the "last 7 days". I never use this feature since I look almost daily, anyways. Well, I'll try and make that my default way of consuming social media. On weekends I can decided to use some of my precious free time to read up on the "big" events of the week. I hope this will make me realize that most weeks go by without producing any information that I can use to improve my own life (both privately and at work) or that of people I care about.
There is stuff I'm looking forward to: This sounds depressing but I have this huge list of non-critical things I wanted to accomplish that I kinda stopped even considering because every damn minute of free time I had was spent doom-scrolling. I hope the "touch grass" people are right and spending more time focused on my own environment will also help me get a better sense of what is important.
I also feel slightly guilty about the thought that this will make me less compassionate towards people who live outside my own bubble and whose stories I would not hear just talking to friends and family. This is an attempt to put my head in the sand and pretend that large parts of the world do not exist. But the truth is: There is only so much I can do, effectively. I can maybe join a group dedicated to fixing a specific wrong or raise awareness. Maybe two. But I could never address that whole laundry list of problems from my news feed that left me paralyzed with fear. I will have a more positive impact on the world if I focus on less.
Let's see where this goes.
I support and highly recommend this idea.
Anecdotally, I stopped watching the news and following politics almost completely 8 years ago (and ditched the vast majority of social media long before that) and it has been very freeing and invigorating. I feel less anxious and irritated in general, my average blood pressure (which wasn't that bad to begin with) has lowered, I've found more time and motivation to exercise and eat healthier, and I think I just enjoy life a lot more than I used to with the cloud of the 24 hour news cycle always looming.
I can't say for certain how much of the positive changes I've experienced over time is directly attributable to becoming "willfully ignorant," but it feels like a pretty big component. My wife still follows the news (I think she's much better at handling it than me) so I'm never completely left in the dark on major events.
Practical question: How do you know who you want to vote for?
Where I live, there’s these as-neutral-as-possible quizzes (in German) that just ask for one’s opinion on a bunch of matters to help you decide, but to be honest, you’d still need some background information for it to make the most sense.
Well, like I said I'm not completely in the dark--I get a slow-trickle of important news and general vibes from my wife.
Also, and this may only really be germane to the US with our merely "democratic-ish" two-party system, the choices we're presented with are often such polar opposites on so many issues that it's not too hard to know which party and candidates most align on the values that matter to you the most. I think if I lived in a country with more nuanced politics then I'd hope for something like those quizzes you linked to help me decide.
I've seen vaguely similar quizzes for the US, but only when there were big primary battles with more than two candidates, such as presidential primaries.
n=1, but I've been casually doing this for a couple of years with good success for my general quality of life. Journalism and news media are past the point of no return in terms of integrity/objectivity or lack thereof, and being barraged by an on-demand feed of tragic events is not something our minds have developed any kind of healthy resilience against.
I suggest finding a good RSS reader app and taking the time to curate specific feeds for topics and industry sectors by which you want to stay updated.
Very inspirational post as I feel close to exactly like you. I really like journalism, I think it is important to stay informed and not be ignorant on issues beyond your life. I subscribe to several newspapers and magazines. But sometimes I question the benefits, because it often becomes very doom and gloom. Especially with all the speculations on the long term consequences of the second Trump presidency. It is hard thing to balance, because I don't believe being ignorant is a good solution either. Some sort of timeboxing, like a weekly thing you propose here, is a concept I need to try in some form. At least be more intentional on what to read, rather than just scrolling through the headlines.
I would add keeping up with locally relevant information through a municipality website of some sort. Allthough usually only good for official information regarding policies, rules, regulations and such, many countries have local websites for the individual municipalities or cities.
There is often local decisions or events that fly by, forgotten in the midsts of bigger or more sensational fast paced news. Decisions that actually matter for the quality of life locally. And that can be influenced by showing up and having an opinion or suggestion.
Edit: And support local libraries. Going there to use their facilities, read magazines (often free onsite in many places around the world), and just to boost their use numbers. They are the last bastion of free information and being a gathering spot for everyone regardless of age or occupation, with no demand to spend money or invest effort whatsoever.
I'm gonna drop a post about this I wrote some months ago: Ideology of news-selling and its critique