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.
So I tend to not end up stumbling across news about elections for my country (Canada). I know when they are happening, but not about details. What I end up doing is just researching each political party before I vote. Canada has effectively three political parties at the federal level (two left parties, one right) outside of Quebec. It tends to not take that long to figure out who I want to vote for (last election it took around 30-60min of research) so keeping up with news is not necessary
This is similar to my approach, also Canada, though I do try to also learn about the specific representatives of my riding, and my area's voting trends, to help me decide whether to vote purely ideologically or (somewhat) strategically.
I honestly believe you can make that decision with maybe an hour of effort. How many issues can there be to shape that decision?
Who genuinely watches the news “to make a decision”?
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.
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
I was going to make a post about this, but I suppose it's relevant enough to the topic in order to ask here.
Having completely removed social media from my life when it gradually went to shit a few years ago, I found myself drawn to politics and news as my only real source of passing the time when there's not much else to do. Now that I'm starting to block the websites I compulsively visit, I find myself worried that if I don't find something more positive to do I'll eventually go back.
I have ADHD, and many times it's not really possible to do nothing. I have been working on putting my phone down more often regardless of all of this, especially around other people, but inevitably there are times where there's not much to do but make a few hours pass.
So, what can be done on a mobile device that is information dense enough to satiate ADHD without causing stress in the process? I have a few ideas, but I'd be happy to hear any suggestions.
Right now, here's what I got (I do these anyways, just not nearly as much as I did politics):
Books or webfiction like Royal road?
Novels can absolutely still teach you things about oppression and equality and justice as much as joy and adventure and loss. Idk if I learn as much from my webfiction but it helps.
I also tend to listen to music while I read or an audiobook while I play a nonsense game
You know, I'd always struggled with reading because I just get distracted by other things - when I was younger I used to write a lot but funnily enough I couldn't get through more than a few chapters no matter how hard I tried. Maybe this is a good time to try and change that. I also fell out of my gaming habit because I felt that I was "wasting time", but honestly, maybe it's a more effective use of it than getting angry or depressed at the world.
Thanks :)
A good coloring app or jigsaw puzzle app while listening to an audiobook is fun.
I also will knit or something while listening to the audiobook
I've really gotten into audiobooks over the past couple of years, and it's become what I think is a healthy distraction activity.
I really like their versatility. I can multitask (go for a walk, garden, chores), or I can just sit back/lie down, close my eyes, and listen when Im too tired to do much else.
I get they aren't for everyone, just my 2 cents!
Duolingo is unfortunately pretty terrible for language learning, but it's better than nothing. You could try Anki which is a flashcard program very popular amongst language learners. If you want to learn a language more passively, Dreaming Spanish is an extremely effective channel with Comprehensible Input videos. The basic idea is that as long as you roughly understand what's being discussed, you'll learn and get better! That's how humans naturally learn a language.
I'm aware that Duolingo kinda sucks for actually learning a language, but because of how my brain works I usually don't have the energy to sit down and learn unless I happen to be really motivated, which causes me to give up pretty easily if I can't somehow keep the goal fresh in my mind. It's low effort, low reward, but at least I'm not doing nothing in between the something and keeping it fresh in my mind.
That being said, I've actually been considering trying to learn through immersion since the more 'traditional' methods of language learning have not gone great for me. I guess I won't really have much of a choice considering I'm moving to a foreign country, but I'd really like to reach that "vague understanding" level before I land there so that I can get started right away.
I'll give Anki a go - I've never tried flash cards before, maybe it'll click. Thanks!
The key to immersion is comprehensible input. Just playing native level media won't help if you don't understand roughly what's being said. If you can find learner content in your target language where you roughly understand what's being said, you're golden.
I like incremental games to consume that need to attend to something at all times. Cookie Clicker was good for a long while, but the one that's held my attention for the last two years is Cell: Idle Factory Incremental, which has just enough changing nuance that there's always something new to incorporate into your picture of how to make number go up. It's not a productive use of time, but it's much better than reading social media.
Thanks for this, I go back and forth on idle clickers and merge games and this one is new for me
Active listening to music is very rewarding. I’m a fan of the Grateful Dead, and I’ve been active listening to shows and comparing different performances of the same songs, it’s been an interesting trip.
I also love Opera and Classical music, which is also better enjoyed with active listening.
I did this years ago. It's been a very positive experience. "News" is almost exclusively stuff which doesn't affect me in any more meaningful way than the weather. I can't change what even my government are doing, let alone one in another country, any more than I can stop it raining. Although not actively seeking news doesn't mean I don't know what's going on, there's enough of it seeping in via osmosis from social media, group chats, actual in-person conversations and if nothing else, my preferred radio station will insist on 2 minutes of headlines every hour. Although I often turn that off.
"News" is pretty much the only think I use reddit for any more. Hyperlocal news. Because my local newspapers are terrible shouting hate rags, the local subreddits are a pretty good filter (and I've been slowly training them to post 12ft.io/etc "clean" links which means I have 0 chance of seeing the comment section) for finding out news that might impact my day to day life and I can occasionally have some tiny-but-real input on. Local government consultations particularly, which generally get responses counted in the hundreds or even tens - so my voice is much louder! Ditching all but those subs (and /r/UpliftingNews for some relief) means my main source of 'news' is much more controllable. But it's also fairly slow so I don't feel the need to check it constantly. Once a day is fine.
Occasionally people ask how I know who to vote for. Well, I get one vote every five years for central government and one every (offset) five years for local. It doesn't take much effort to get up to speed on what the politicos have been doing between elections if I want to. But, given I live in a FPTP system I have to vote tactically so it barely even matters. I can either vote for the party I know I like if it's safe, or vote for the least-bad-but-likely-to-win candidate otherwise.
Sometimes people ask do I feel like I should know what is going on in the world and to those people I say "Why?". What good can it do? Knowing what's happening everywhere is impossible anyway, and the selection of things promoted by the news industry as 'current affairs' is largely just awful stuff. And it's all shit I can't change. Am I sad that people in country X are being oppressed/slaughtered/etc? Of course I am. But me knowing that's happening doesn't save a single life. I can't afford to give more to charity than I do, and if I could, again like voting, it's not hard to get enough information to make an informed decision. I don't need a dripfeed of horrors and it doesn't help anyone if I do have one.
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.
Much like other responses, I've found tuning out of news (selectively) over the past couple of years to be very refreshing to my mental health.
One observation I noticed when my partner put on live US election coverage the other night: After only a few minutes, the whole overall production (across multiple networks) felt very geared toward inducing a stress response.
Everyone speaks really aggressively, the animations are overly flashy, the sounds and music force a sense of alert and immediacy.
It was so offputting and grating we had to put it on mute, and then abandonned altogether and went to bed early.
I think it's possibly a good idea to start a regimen. You know how people used to read the Sunday papers with their morning coffee? Just do that with your news and keep it to a specific interval, maybe every few days or every Sunday.
The Information era has led to unrestricted streams of news and this probably messes people up. But back then, you'd get the papers every few times a week and read that (I was never really old enough to experience that so I can't comment too much on it). You get the gist.
I've been trying very hard to switch to reading periodic long form journalism (Atlantic, New Yorker, etc) rather than the quick adrenaline hit of an ever changing news feed, but it's hard.
As of yesterday, though, I've been thinking of giving it another try -- I've been explicitly avoiding most news sites and forums that try to feed me with a quick hit, other than venting my feelings here in the post-election mental health discussion.
Maybe this time I'll succeed -- I doubt it, but worth another try.
I'm not going to post a wall of text about Sherlock Holmes, and what Watson said about his lack of interest in things that didn't directly affect him and things he couldn't affect, but this summed it up for me. Watson was going on about Copernican theory and Holmes was having none of it.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
this is something I'm trying with Tildes
For reddit
This is very very specific and new, so I'll see how it goes. I've got the first on a toggle with stylus.