"catch up with all relevant political news in 1-2 hours/month of concentrated effort." I have noticed this too when coming back from a month long trip. Usually

"catch up with all relevant political news in 1-2 hours/month of concentrated effort." I have noticed this too when coming back from a month long trip. Usually nothing important has changed. I would argue that by checking once a month you get a better idea of the big picture because you deal less with the noise. At my company they have CNN playing at lunch time and during that hour almost nothing important gets transmitted. It's just endless discussion about the same topics.