10 ms·

Why We Should Watch Less News

106 points by prostoalex 8y ago

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
"...But the question we need to ask ourselves here is not whether such behaviors (or the cover-ups of such behaviors) are outrageous, but rather why we have become such insatiable consumers of these outrages? What does it cost us?..." Exactly. There are four billion people on the planet. We are all connected instantaneously. If there isn't something happening every minute that's completely disgusting and outrageous, the species isn't diverse enough. The question is why we want it delivered into our day-to-day emotional lives -- and who is benefiting from having that kind of transfer happen. No matter how bad something is, we can accept that it's bad, decide on measures to take (sometimes drastic measures) and continue on with our lives. Humans have lived their entire evolutionary existence like this. War over in Europe? Bombing of Pearl Harbor? I guess we may have to send millions off to war. A lot of people we know are going to die. It's only when we get the direct, back-and-forth, highly-charged emotional interaction that we become more-and-more angry, make irrational choices. We try to up one another with displays of our outrage and pain. Become unhappy and emotionally unstable. Then, guess what? We can share that emotional state with millions of others through the net! My advice to people who are beginning to wake up to this, but still want to know what the current political discussions are? Read well-constructed opinion columns. Good ones are required to have thesis and supporting arguments. So you get bias, facts, and a look at somebody's reasoning. I scan opinion columns from all sides of the political debates. I find I lose about 24 hours on learning what current events are. And I'm okay with that trade-off. A serial killer 1500 miles away doesn't require me to gear up and go out with a SWAT team. It can wait. 99% of this can wait.
- iamthirsty 8y ago
  > There are four billion people on the planet. There is actually almost 8 billion, now.
  - godelmachine 8y ago
    I was going to say the same. Maybe he meant 4 billion electronically connected people on the planet.
    - iamthirsty 8y ago
      That makes more sense, as it seems to be 4,156,932,140 total[0]. [0]: https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
- chrisco255 8y ago
  This is pretty on point. I tend to lean towards realclearpolitics.com for my news as it alternates liberal and conservative columns every other headline. The juxtaposition of the two slants is pretty telling about how each side sees current events.
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    One of the funny things I've noticed about reading opinion columns in this format is how often you get these bombastic headlines on both sides of something. "X is bad! The end!" and right afterwards "X is goodness! A new age dawns!" (X may be something like "local pickle farmers protest new holiday". The topic doesn't matter, oddly enough, it's audience size that counts) If you scan the first column, it's very weak. There not much of an argument or factual substrate. Then scan the second. Completely different opinion. Same crappy argument quality. Sometimes you can go nine or ten columns like this. I'm left with opinion on those days that not much of anything has happened regarding X. But folks still need views! Consuming news in this fashion is a great way to disconnect emotional manipulation from actual news. When they're directly trying to manipulate you, you begin to learn the rules of the game.
    - stlHusker 8y ago
      "I'm left with opinion on those days that not much of anything has happened regarding X. But folks still need views!" In a strange way it validates how well off we are, particularly in the U.S., that outrage needs to be manufactured in this way. Of course the impacts are extremely negative and no journalist ever gets views or prizes for "hey it is important but society won't collapse and we are pretty well off..." In the end it is a number of factors and cycles between the public and the media: 1) News is now a entertainment with eyes to attract. 2) The public loves death, destruction and crisis. "We like to watch things die from a safe distance; better you than us." 3) Journalists don't get any personal or professional benefit from covering important but "mundane" things. Look at who wins the Pulitzer. 4) On an individual level, people will still find things that are problematic regardless of how well off they are (see "First-World" problems). 5) Knowing of 4) there is a typical over-reaction to actual things of importance; but the reaction is hysterical. "A kid was kidnapped today, that could happen to mine!" 6) Now that every individual, isolated event can be distributed to millions; every single crisis abstracted to be systematic and endemic (based on 4) and 5) above); it is not that bad things happen, it is that there needs to be a solution and we need to solve for it. "We've got to do something about this kidnapping crisis, I see it on the news all the time!" 7) Realizing 6) the media can now take political positions and feed into this need to produce more stories that satiate that. A year later...parents are charged with neglect after letting their kids walk home from school alone. Turns out it was a relative who kidnapped the kid. Also turns out there were only 10 of these this year in your community and the chances of this are much smaller than they were years ago, but all of them hit the news, so...
siruncledrew 8y ago
>"While research has shown that visually shocking and upsetting news can contribute to anxiety, sleeping trouble, raise cortisol levels and even trigger PTSD symptoms, a University of Sussex study found that just six minutes reading a book can reduce stress levels up to 68%." Would the results be different if the same news was delivered in text form as opposed to visual? In light of all the problems, why do we compel ourselves to continue watching more?
- beat 8y ago
  The same reason we eat junk food, knowing all that refined sugar and salt and fat are bad for us. The media is tuned to our instincts, not to our conscious minds.
beat 8y ago
OMG THIS. I recently deleted social media apps from my phone, and replaced most of my social media diet with reading books again, like I did in the good olde days before the internet. I feel... healthier. Smarter, for sure. After reading a ton of philosophy and history recently, the day-to-day political debate on the internet looks like nonsense most of the time now. And when I see someone is wrong on the internet, I can just let them be wrong on the internet. Because it doesn't matter, it won't last. Reading the classics, books of deep thought and proven quality, is wonderful.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Nothing wrong with that, sounds very healthy, but does it also mean you're not engaging in one of the most influential public forums of our time? Why do you think it won't last?
  - beat 8y ago
    Social media will last. The things said on social media won't last. But a thousand years from now, people will still be reading Spinoza, because his philosophy will never become irrelevant.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  Social media is just as untrustworthy as traditional news. Friends sharing news/propaganda from various outlets. Fake users astroturfing on reddit/twitter/HN/facebook/insta. I dont know what the future is, but I'm positive its going to be first-hand sources. At least that way, you are going to be skeptical the entire time and that persons reputation is at stake.
  - beat 8y ago
    We kind of have that first-hand future already. Consider Trump's twitter feed. He speaks directly to the public, in a simple and direct way, largely immune to editing/manipulation. Sure, it's insane, but it's the most direct communication we've ever had from a president, and that's kind of impressive. But in general, the problem with first hand sources is credibility. How do you know you can trust a first hand source you've never heard of? Are they giving us a complete or fair picture? Or are they either unintentionally or intentionally misleading us with incomplete/incorrect information? I'd like to say the future is in credibility and integrity, but I fear that's actually the past. Now, people just believe what they want to believe, and pick and choose their facts to fit their internal narrative. It's nihilistic and terrifying, and I have no idea how society can resist it.
beat 8y ago
Recommended reading list thread! What have you read this year that you think others should read as well? Here's a few of mine that really stand out. Factfulness, by Hans Rosling The Ethics of Ambiguity, by Simone de Beauvoir Designing Delivery, by Jeff Sussna (re-read) The Cooking Gene, by Michael Twitty Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor The Philosophy of Spinoza The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan
- turc1656 8y ago
  The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt EDIT: Thanks for the list. I think I'm going to check out The Silk Roads - seems like my type of book/topic.
- HSO 8y ago
  Question, since you listed Rösling's Factfulness: How many points did you get in their little quiz in the intro or ch1, I forget where it was, if you don't mind sharing?
  - natch 8y ago
    You ask questions, but you don’t answer them...
have_faith 8y ago
If you where to move your news reading to once weekly, what news sources would you use to catch up on anything useful you might have missed in that time? traditional online news outlets are too fast paced for this purpose I think, very high signal to noise.
- WarDores 8y ago
  I decided a while back to shift my "news" consumption to reading print journals -- I have 2 or 3 quarterlies that I go pick up at Barnes and Noble. It keeps me up to date on current affairs, but provides well thought out commentary that "up to the minute" journalism lacks. At least well thought out enough to merit putting on real paper.
- exhilaration 8y ago
  New York Times Sunday edition? The paper version is $5/week delivered. Or NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday: https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/ https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/ Available in most radio markets or online.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- smoe 8y ago
  It is quite hard if want to have a weekly overview of what happened in the world, besides some traditional weekly print titles with online versions. Daily is much easier and still much better than real time. I stopped reading "news" at around 2011, from being a news junkie before. Including news about tech, music, movies, books, etc. Now I have the general mentality that either: - If something is really important enough for me to care, it will reach me eventually in some way or the other. - There is absolutely no reason to immediately start reading up after events like terror attacks, air plane crashes etc. For the first days it is pretty much pure speculation and hearsay. If I'm interested what happened, I will take a mental note to read up about it two weeks later when actual information starts becoming available. So basically I don't keep myself updated on general news anymore. I investigate specific topics. Ironically I changed my habits, while working at a big news site, which was part of the reason for doing so.
adiusmus 8y ago
This has been true for the last 4 decades. Most news is designed to make you angry, afraid or sometimes happy. Mostly manipulation and deception. Even the news cycle is nonsense. You probably won’t remember what happened 2 years ago on a random Wednesday.
- beat 8y ago
  Most news is designed to sell you cars and laundry detergent. More to the point, you're not the customer. You're the product. Advertisers are the customer. So the news isn't really meant to inform, but rather to encourage sticking around to see what happens next. Appeal to baser emotions works well for that. Think of it that way, and people asking for cute kitten pics online because they're having a bad day is functionally the same thing as crazy talk radio.
  - heartles 8y ago
    I will say, that's one reason why I've been tending towards NPR/PBS for my news source. It seems more likely to me that I am the customer when there aren't any advertisers (besides the occasional "supported by" blurb that lasts a few seconds).
  - adiusmus 8y ago
    That’s pretty much every website that has ads on it. I’ve used internal timesheeting sites that had ads!
    - beat 8y ago
      Yes, it's true of websites. But it's also true of tv/cable news, talk radio, and newspapers.
      - adiusmus 8y ago
        And soon enough, the cars we ride in.
jacobevelyn 8y ago
A related post from the late Aaron Swartz: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
abhiminator 8y ago
I recall reading and saving (in my Instapaper) a super relevant essay[0] written by a Swiss entrepreneur/author -- Rolf Dobelli -- that talks about how news systematically alters your 'risk-map' of the world, thus making you worry about things that'll almost never affect you while distracting you from things that actually might; as an example, the author talks about how terrorism is overrated and chronic stress is underrated, as portrayed in the media. He suggests going on a news diet by mindfully curating the news content one plans on consuming, and thinking about its relevance to everyday life. Personally, I can attest to experiencing increased clarity of thought, creativity and productivity once I blocked all of the junky news sites and the ilk out. This combined with practicing mindfulness has had a massive impact on my state of well-being and lowering of stress. My overall happiness has increased as a result. [0] http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/ http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/
- nemild 8y ago
  Here's my data analysis justifying Dobelli's thesis: How Media Fuels our Fear of Western Terrorism https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html There's also a fair bit of psychology research on how news coverage of vivid deaths increases PTSD, you can see one link in my first piece above. This coverage makes sense when you are focusing on newsworthiness and engagement — but is very flawed for good decision making.
- asdkhadsj 8y ago
  > He suggests going on a news diet by mindfully curating the news content one plans on consuming, and thinking about its relevance to everyday life I've actually wanted to do this for multiple things too. Ie, I want to spend ~15m a day getting a curated list on various topics that interest me. From tech, programming, etc. I don't want to feel I'm "missing" anything. My desire stems from not wanting to miss tech related events, and building habits of being on Reddit and HN. If I had a reliable aggregator I hope to reduce my FOMA style addiction. I imagine this would be useful for world news as well.
godelmachine 8y ago
I think the spirit of this article goes as far back as Henry David Thoreau's time. He asked us to give up newsdailies in favor of classics and literature. Hope many will concur.
open-source-ux 8y ago
If you don't want to watch TV news, try listening to radio news instead. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but most of Europe has publicy-funded broadcasters who provide radio as well TV services. In fact, between click-bait headlines in newspapers and emotive pictures on TV, radio is often ignored as another source of news. Most public radio stations in Europe are available to listen by all (i.e. not geo-blocked like the TV stations). I don't think it's healthy to avoid news, but be selective about how you get it and don't rely on a single source.
nemild 8y ago
I write a bunch about this. There is often a sense that the more news we consume, the more informed we are. My research shows the opposite, where where news gives us a deeply biased view of the world ( https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html ). For many of us, we use media to make important decisions — and a lot of the coverage isn't well suited for that purpose. In this social media era especially, so much of the news you see covered is a function of what will get engagement. It even applies to things like which wars will be covered in the US (one NY Times reporter makes this point in coverage of Yemen vs Syria). Here's a media literacy guide I wrote: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media (BTW, media literacy is esp critical for engineers, given how much thinly disguised marketing well funded tech companies put in front of engineers, esp in cryptocurrencies. See this media literacy guide for software engs: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/software-engineers-media-guide.md https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/softwar... )
georgeecollins 8y ago
The economic and social factors that have caused news to become less than helpful have been understood for a long time and clearly described. It is just that the warnings went unheeded and the problem has become extreme. Rather than watch the news (or go to a news website) read these excellent books: - The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner - Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman Rather than get distracted by news trivia, learn something from these books that have stood the test of time.
Reedx 8y ago
Serious question: Is there any good argument for consuming the news at all at this point?
minikites 8y ago
>Novels. Non-fiction. Memoirs. Biographies. Self-Help and the Classics. Just about anything bound between two covers will teach you something more than the latest headlines — and will do far more in regards to settling your soul. This is an awfully privileged point of view and you may want to examine your own privileges to think about why that might be. Example: I'm willing to bet the author and many people reading this don't have to worry about their voter registration information getting purged/invalidated or their polling place closing because that happens more often to lower income people who live in impoverished areas. If you have no awareness of current events, you could be unable to vote and it's likely that you would find out too late to correct it. Consuming the news will give you a chance to correct or protest these issues before registration deadlines pass.
- beat 8y ago
  Being fully conscious of privilege issues here... your comment sounds like Outrage Addiction to me. Yes, aware of problems with vote access. But those problems are fundamentally legislative, and won't be solved by treating the symptoms. Go to a state with sensible voting laws (my beloved Minnesota), and the system is immune, thanks to same day registration and provisional ballots. Even a concerted purge effort would crash against the well-designed system. These short-term election issues are a product of fundamentally bad design. Focus on fixing the design, not "protest". Moreover - and speaking of privileged perspective - there is nothing that says you can't pay attention to the news and read novels, memoirs, self-help books, and of course the classics. There is no plausible political situation where you can't squeeze an hour a day off your Twitter feed in order to spend it reading, say, American Nations, or The Cooking Gene, and learn some of the historical roots behind the news that's ruining your blood pressure today. There's a real distinction between urgent and important. I can recommend multiple good books on exactly that.
  - minikites 8y ago
    >But those problems are fundamentally legislative, and won't be solved by treating the symptoms. Voting for new legislators isn't the way for citizens to address legislative issues?
66d8kk 8y ago
A couple of months ago I stopped daily consumption of news content (except technical links on HN ;) and began a physical subscription to The Week [1]. Come Saturday I sit down with a coffee for 45 minutes, catch up on the most important national and global news events (crucially from all types of leaning sources) and then go about my weekend. Highly recommended to those who enjoy keeping abreast but find themselves been dragged down psychologically on a daily basis. [1] - http://www.theweek.co.uk/ http://www.theweek.co.uk/ Edit - turns out there is a US equivalent: https://theweek.com/ https://theweek.com/
iliaznk 8y ago
Over a year ago I Stopped watching and reading any news except those I can see here on HN. Never looked back.
drblast 8y ago
I grew up in a very conservative household in the U.S. and when Bill Clinton was elected I watched my mother descend into a pit of anger, fueled by her constant attention to Rush Limbaugh and cable news. Her fixation on the Clinton presidency and news related to it was all-consuming. The sad thing was that she felt like she was making a difference and was actively engaged in the political process, much the same way that a rabid football fan feels like they are actually affecting the outcome of the games through their fandom. The amount of vitriol spewed toward Clinton in our house was nothing short of obsessive and in hindsight, pretty unhealthy. Looking back, one would easily wonder, "why? What was the big deal?" To this day any mention of the man will provoke a look of disgust and some derogatory remark from my mother. Realistically Clinton's presidency actually had very little effect on my family's life, and if we were completely ignorant of who was president at the time nothing would be different other than the constant level of angst. I live in a blue state now so I witness other people do the same thing my mother did but focused on Bush (the next Hitler!!!!) and then Trump (Uhhh...what do we call him now that "next Hitler" is already taken? I guess we'll just call him that but louder and angrier). I'd imagine that Obama got the same treatment in various other parts of the country. I also see this kind of reaction seems to replace rational thought and productive action that actually would make any sort of difference in the world with well, just hate.
- beat 8y ago
  Trump is interesting in that he's kind of a product of modern media-fueled outrage. Sometimes I call him President Clickbait. He says and does a lot of things because they are provocative and travel well. Both his lovers and his haters pay extraordinary attention to him. Makes me dread what the next president will be like.
- lucretian 8y ago
  > but focused on Bush (the next Hitler!!!!) bush launched a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. sometimes, strong negative reactions are justified.
Sea_Wulf 8y ago
> "Two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations, 'Are you distracted by breaking news? Then take some leisure time to learn something good, and stop bouncing around.'" Probably a minor quibble, as I do agree with the thesis to some degree, but the quote from Marcus Aurelius is utterly false. There is no such quote in Meditations at all[0], though Aurelius is a huge proponent of moving away from external distractions to concentrate on building yourself up. Indeed, he would probably agree with the article ("make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions" (Book 2:7)), but would rail against putting in a false statement ("The human soul degrades itself... when it puts on a mask and does or says something artificial or false." (Book 2:16) [0] http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf
- sattoshi 8y ago
  I got the impression that it was just a joke.
deleted 8y ago
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spicymaki 8y ago
This is so true. My monkey brain cannot deal with the onslaught of cortisol triggering events.
Nasrudith 8y ago
Personally I think it is more a matter of quality than quantity with news. I stopped watching news over a decade or so ago because I could tell that it became vaucous space filling. Instead of covering events in depth they beat a topic to death with speculation and dropped it by the time it had an actual resolution. It was abundantly clear they were trying to avoid any real journalism as it would take work which costs money. I find news worth it as read and more in depth to the point it is more history say covering the hysteria over the VCR or past moral panics. Which I suppose sort of agrees with the article's point - seeking insights instead of ephemera. The ephemera is relevant however if one is involved with activism in some way even if it is just to donate twenty dollars to the defense of someone subject to some injustice.
Rotdhizon 8y ago
I haven't watched the news in several years at this point. I'll overhear a story or two occasionally when someone else in the house is watching it. The news upsets me more than anything. It's a majority violent/sad news, with the rare uplifting story. I don't want to start my morning with 4 stories on who got murdered/robbed/raped the night before. The news anymore puts so much emphasis on the negatives. Even on the negative stories, it's rarely about the journalism, it's more about splattering the accused person's name all over the screen. Frankly I don't care about the news. I don't care to about sports news, local happenings, crime stories, construction, etc. If I want to know about the weather, I'll use a weather based source, same goes for traffic. I will say that I also know people who watch the news too much, multiple times per day. These people live their lives based around what the news told them. Their interests, their fears, it all comes from the news. They don't think for themselves, they think what the news tells them they should think. I've seen their gradual change in thinking. They used to be a bit more out going, but now some of them are petrified to even leave their neighborhood because they think death is around every corner. The news has them so scared that violence is a foot away at any time. I have a few family members who take it to the extreme. The news has them convinced that almost everyone in the world is out to get them. The only people they aren't scared of are people they already know. If you're a stranger and try to talk to them, they automatically assume you are out to scam, harm, or otherwise 'get' them. All because the news focuses so heavily on violence and negativity anymore.
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tw1010 8y ago
I like to say I don't watch the news. But I'm also almost never surprised when news articles arises in discussion irl. So I guess I still consume a lot of news, it's just that I don't read the NYT much, but I get it from podcasts and HN and similar instead.
mindw0rk 8y ago
Does HN counts?
bovermyer 8y ago
"Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" by Hans Rosling, et al is a great book that's relevant to this subject.
AltruisticGap 8y ago
I've started thinking more seriously about this as well. When we're home, we like to think there is this whole wide world "out there". Behind the walls that surround us, is this world full of events and good things and bad things. Yet in actuality, it is all mind. And much of this mind (ie. memory) is not of having actually visited those places or experienced those events -- it's information that we were just fed (images, videos, myths and beliefs). It got me thinking about this saying "your body is what you put in it". Likewise then, "your world (and thus all your hopes and dreams) is what you put in it". I mean, I used to think this was some kind of New Age / pop psychology, like "positive thinking". But it isn't. By acknowledging the actual nature of this world right now, which is mostly in my mind right here as I type this message... then the validity of this becomes more evident. Everything I think, everything I do, comes from this internal map of self and of the world...
40acres 8y ago
Not sure I agree with this. After the 2016 election I was really wired into news. I watched a lot of CNN and was tuned in the 24 hour news cycle, after a couple of months I decided I didn't really like the way this news was delivered but still wanted to be informed. I turned to podcasts more and now listen to podcasts on policy, politics, technology and economics and I feel much more informed than the average citizen and intellectually stimulated. I think we should work on increasing the quantity of quality news as opposed to telling people to stay away from it. Full disclosure, here's my current media "diet" - Hacker news of course. - NYT subscription - NYT The Daily podcast (news of the day) - NPR Politics Podcast - Marketplace Podcast (economics) - Vox's Ezra Klein Show (wide range of policy experts interviewed) - Vox's The Weeds (conversations on political / economic policy) - Vox's Worldly (foreign affairs) - Marginal Revolution (economics) Admittedly it's a left leaning viewpoint and I'd like to find more conservative outlets but haven't been able to find interesting ones. I listened to Sam Harris for a while but over the past year he's shown a deep flaw w.r.t his views on race and unwillingness to be challenged.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  If you're into cheeky humor, I rather like Greg Gutfeld's The One, for a conservative podcast.
- tropo 8y ago
  The most significant conservative outlet is probably Breitbart, but if you'll settle for "not left leaning" then One America News Network (OAN or OANN) is excellent for being factual no-nonsense serious coverage. You can get One America News Network as a web site or phone app, and some lucky people can also get it as a cable TV channel.
computador 8y ago
Although I am not yet a subscriber, but plan to, I believe it is worth mentionning "Delayed Gratification" for those of you who are looking for a printed, curated source of current events around the world: https://www.slow-journalism.com/ https://www.slow-journalism.com/
RickJWagner 8y ago
I like to read headlines from RealClearPolitics. RCP has headlines from both sides of the aisle, equally bombastic. I can see at a glance how each side is spinning some issue and I can read neither or both if I want. It seems a good way to get some semblance of balance in the news.
stephengillie 8y ago
"News" isn't. If something important happens, someone will tell you, or it will be on HN or another site you visit. Fear losing your time and sanity more than fear of missing out.

106 points by prostoalex 8y ago

"...But the question we need to ask ourselves here is not whether such behaviors (or the cover-ups of such behaviors) are outrageous, but rather why we have become such insatiable consumers of these outrages? What does it cost us?..." Exactly. There are four billion people on the planet. We are all connected instantaneously. If there isn't something happening every minute that's completely disgusting and outrageous, the species isn't diverse enough. The question is why we want it delivered into our day-to-day emotional lives -- and who is benefiting from having that kind of transfer happen. No matter how bad something is, we can accept that it's bad, decide on measures to take (sometimes drastic measures) and continue on with our lives. Humans have lived their entire evolutionary existence like this. War over in Europe? Bombing of Pearl Harbor? I guess we may have to send millions off to war. A lot of people we know are going to die. It's only when we get the direct, back-and-forth, highly-charged emotional interaction that we become more-and-more angry, make irrational choices. We try to up one another with displays of our outrage and pain. Become unhappy and emotionally unstable. Then, guess what? We can share that emotional state with millions of others through the net! My advice to people who are beginning to wake up to this, but still want to know what the current political discussions are? Read well-constructed opinion columns. Good ones are required to have thesis and supporting arguments. So you get bias, facts, and a look at somebody's reasoning. I scan opinion columns from all sides of the political debates. I find I lose about 24 hours on learning what current events are. And I'm okay with that trade-off. A serial killer 1500 miles away doesn't require me to gear up and go out with a SWAT team. It can wait. 99% of this can wait.

iamthirsty 8y ago
> There are four billion people on the planet. There is actually almost 8 billion, now.
- godelmachine 8y ago
  I was going to say the same. Maybe he meant 4 billion electronically connected people on the planet.
  - iamthirsty 8y ago
    That makes more sense, as it seems to be 4,156,932,140 total[0]. [0]: https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
chrisco255 8y ago
This is pretty on point. I tend to lean towards realclearpolitics.com for my news as it alternates liberal and conservative columns every other headline. The juxtaposition of the two slants is pretty telling about how each side sees current events.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  One of the funny things I've noticed about reading opinion columns in this format is how often you get these bombastic headlines on both sides of something. "X is bad! The end!" and right afterwards "X is goodness! A new age dawns!" (X may be something like "local pickle farmers protest new holiday". The topic doesn't matter, oddly enough, it's audience size that counts) If you scan the first column, it's very weak. There not much of an argument or factual substrate. Then scan the second. Completely different opinion. Same crappy argument quality. Sometimes you can go nine or ten columns like this. I'm left with opinion on those days that not much of anything has happened regarding X. But folks still need views! Consuming news in this fashion is a great way to disconnect emotional manipulation from actual news. When they're directly trying to manipulate you, you begin to learn the rules of the game.
  - stlHusker 8y ago
    "I'm left with opinion on those days that not much of anything has happened regarding X. But folks still need views!" In a strange way it validates how well off we are, particularly in the U.S., that outrage needs to be manufactured in this way. Of course the impacts are extremely negative and no journalist ever gets views or prizes for "hey it is important but society won't collapse and we are pretty well off..." In the end it is a number of factors and cycles between the public and the media: 1) News is now a entertainment with eyes to attract. 2) The public loves death, destruction and crisis. "We like to watch things die from a safe distance; better you than us." 3) Journalists don't get any personal or professional benefit from covering important but "mundane" things. Look at who wins the Pulitzer. 4) On an individual level, people will still find things that are problematic regardless of how well off they are (see "First-World" problems). 5) Knowing of 4) there is a typical over-reaction to actual things of importance; but the reaction is hysterical. "A kid was kidnapped today, that could happen to mine!" 6) Now that every individual, isolated event can be distributed to millions; every single crisis abstracted to be systematic and endemic (based on 4) and 5) above); it is not that bad things happen, it is that there needs to be a solution and we need to solve for it. "We've got to do something about this kidnapping crisis, I see it on the news all the time!" 7) Realizing 6) the media can now take political positions and feed into this need to produce more stories that satiate that. A year later...parents are charged with neglect after letting their kids walk home from school alone. Turns out it was a relative who kidnapped the kid. Also turns out there were only 10 of these this year in your community and the chances of this are much smaller than they were years ago, but all of them hit the news, so...

siruncledrew 8y ago

>"While research has shown that visually shocking and upsetting news can contribute to anxiety, sleeping trouble, raise cortisol levels and even trigger PTSD symptoms, a University of Sussex study found that just six minutes reading a book can reduce stress levels up to 68%." Would the results be different if the same news was delivered in text form as opposed to visual? In light of all the problems, why do we compel ourselves to continue watching more?

beat 8y ago
The same reason we eat junk food, knowing all that refined sugar and salt and fat are bad for us. The media is tuned to our instincts, not to our conscious minds.

beat 8y ago

OMG THIS. I recently deleted social media apps from my phone, and replaced most of my social media diet with reading books again, like I did in the good olde days before the internet. I feel... healthier. Smarter, for sure. After reading a ton of philosophy and history recently, the day-to-day political debate on the internet looks like nonsense most of the time now. And when I see someone is wrong on the internet, I can just let them be wrong on the internet. Because it doesn't matter, it won't last. Reading the classics, books of deep thought and proven quality, is wonderful.

chrisco255 8y ago
Nothing wrong with that, sounds very healthy, but does it also mean you're not engaging in one of the most influential public forums of our time? Why do you think it won't last?
- beat 8y ago
  Social media will last. The things said on social media won't last. But a thousand years from now, people will still be reading Spinoza, because his philosophy will never become irrelevant.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
MrEfficiency 8y ago
Social media is just as untrustworthy as traditional news. Friends sharing news/propaganda from various outlets. Fake users astroturfing on reddit/twitter/HN/facebook/insta. I dont know what the future is, but I'm positive its going to be first-hand sources. At least that way, you are going to be skeptical the entire time and that persons reputation is at stake.
- beat 8y ago
  We kind of have that first-hand future already. Consider Trump's twitter feed. He speaks directly to the public, in a simple and direct way, largely immune to editing/manipulation. Sure, it's insane, but it's the most direct communication we've ever had from a president, and that's kind of impressive. But in general, the problem with first hand sources is credibility. How do you know you can trust a first hand source you've never heard of? Are they giving us a complete or fair picture? Or are they either unintentionally or intentionally misleading us with incomplete/incorrect information? I'd like to say the future is in credibility and integrity, but I fear that's actually the past. Now, people just believe what they want to believe, and pick and choose their facts to fit their internal narrative. It's nihilistic and terrifying, and I have no idea how society can resist it.

beat 8y ago

Recommended reading list thread! What have you read this year that you think others should read as well? Here's a few of mine that really stand out. Factfulness, by Hans Rosling The Ethics of Ambiguity, by Simone de Beauvoir Designing Delivery, by Jeff Sussna (re-read) The Cooking Gene, by Michael Twitty Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor The Philosophy of Spinoza The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan

turc1656 8y ago
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt EDIT: Thanks for the list. I think I'm going to check out The Silk Roads - seems like my type of book/topic.
HSO 8y ago
Question, since you listed Rösling's Factfulness: How many points did you get in their little quiz in the intro or ch1, I forget where it was, if you don't mind sharing?
- natch 8y ago
  You ask questions, but you don’t answer them...

have_faith 8y ago

If you where to move your news reading to once weekly, what news sources would you use to catch up on anything useful you might have missed in that time? traditional online news outlets are too fast paced for this purpose I think, very high signal to noise.

WarDores 8y ago
I decided a while back to shift my "news" consumption to reading print journals -- I have 2 or 3 quarterlies that I go pick up at Barnes and Noble. It keeps me up to date on current affairs, but provides well thought out commentary that "up to the minute" journalism lacks. At least well thought out enough to merit putting on real paper.
exhilaration 8y ago
New York Times Sunday edition? The paper version is $5/week delivered. Or NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday: https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/ https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/ Available in most radio markets or online.
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smoe 8y ago
It is quite hard if want to have a weekly overview of what happened in the world, besides some traditional weekly print titles with online versions. Daily is much easier and still much better than real time. I stopped reading "news" at around 2011, from being a news junkie before. Including news about tech, music, movies, books, etc. Now I have the general mentality that either: - If something is really important enough for me to care, it will reach me eventually in some way or the other. - There is absolutely no reason to immediately start reading up after events like terror attacks, air plane crashes etc. For the first days it is pretty much pure speculation and hearsay. If I'm interested what happened, I will take a mental note to read up about it two weeks later when actual information starts becoming available. So basically I don't keep myself updated on general news anymore. I investigate specific topics. Ironically I changed my habits, while working at a big news site, which was part of the reason for doing so.

adiusmus 8y ago

This has been true for the last 4 decades. Most news is designed to make you angry, afraid or sometimes happy. Mostly manipulation and deception. Even the news cycle is nonsense. You probably won’t remember what happened 2 years ago on a random Wednesday.

beat 8y ago
Most news is designed to sell you cars and laundry detergent. More to the point, you're not the customer. You're the product. Advertisers are the customer. So the news isn't really meant to inform, but rather to encourage sticking around to see what happens next. Appeal to baser emotions works well for that. Think of it that way, and people asking for cute kitten pics online because they're having a bad day is functionally the same thing as crazy talk radio.
- heartles 8y ago
  I will say, that's one reason why I've been tending towards NPR/PBS for my news source. It seems more likely to me that I am the customer when there aren't any advertisers (besides the occasional "supported by" blurb that lasts a few seconds).
- adiusmus 8y ago
  That’s pretty much every website that has ads on it. I’ve used internal timesheeting sites that had ads!
  - beat 8y ago
    Yes, it's true of websites. But it's also true of tv/cable news, talk radio, and newspapers.
    - adiusmus 8y ago
      And soon enough, the cars we ride in.

jacobevelyn 8y ago

A related post from the late Aaron Swartz: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

abhiminator 8y ago

I recall reading and saving (in my Instapaper) a super relevant essay[0] written by a Swiss entrepreneur/author -- Rolf Dobelli -- that talks about how news systematically alters your 'risk-map' of the world, thus making you worry about things that'll almost never affect you while distracting you from things that actually might; as an example, the author talks about how terrorism is overrated and chronic stress is underrated, as portrayed in the media. He suggests going on a news diet by mindfully curating the news content one plans on consuming, and thinking about its relevance to everyday life. Personally, I can attest to experiencing increased clarity of thought, creativity and productivity once I blocked all of the junky news sites and the ilk out. This combined with practicing mindfulness has had a massive impact on my state of well-being and lowering of stress. My overall happiness has increased as a result. [0] http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/ http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/

nemild 8y ago
Here's my data analysis justifying Dobelli's thesis: How Media Fuels our Fear of Western Terrorism https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html There's also a fair bit of psychology research on how news coverage of vivid deaths increases PTSD, you can see one link in my first piece above. This coverage makes sense when you are focusing on newsworthiness and engagement — but is very flawed for good decision making.
asdkhadsj 8y ago
> He suggests going on a news diet by mindfully curating the news content one plans on consuming, and thinking about its relevance to everyday life I've actually wanted to do this for multiple things too. Ie, I want to spend ~15m a day getting a curated list on various topics that interest me. From tech, programming, etc. I don't want to feel I'm "missing" anything. My desire stems from not wanting to miss tech related events, and building habits of being on Reddit and HN. If I had a reliable aggregator I hope to reduce my FOMA style addiction. I imagine this would be useful for world news as well.

godelmachine 8y ago

I think the spirit of this article goes as far back as Henry David Thoreau's time. He asked us to give up newsdailies in favor of classics and literature. Hope many will concur.

open-source-ux 8y ago

If you don't want to watch TV news, try listening to radio news instead. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but most of Europe has publicy-funded broadcasters who provide radio as well TV services. In fact, between click-bait headlines in newspapers and emotive pictures on TV, radio is often ignored as another source of news. Most public radio stations in Europe are available to listen by all (i.e. not geo-blocked like the TV stations). I don't think it's healthy to avoid news, but be selective about how you get it and don't rely on a single source.

nemild 8y ago

I write a bunch about this. There is often a sense that the more news we consume, the more informed we are. My research shows the opposite, where where news gives us a deeply biased view of the world ( https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html ). For many of us, we use media to make important decisions — and a lot of the coverage isn't well suited for that purpose. In this social media era especially, so much of the news you see covered is a function of what will get engagement. It even applies to things like which wars will be covered in the US (one NY Times reporter makes this point in coverage of Yemen vs Syria). Here's a media literacy guide I wrote: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media (BTW, media literacy is esp critical for engineers, given how much thinly disguised marketing well funded tech companies put in front of engineers, esp in cryptocurrencies. See this media literacy guide for software engs: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/software-engineers-media-guide.md https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/softwar... )

georgeecollins 8y ago

The economic and social factors that have caused news to become less than helpful have been understood for a long time and clearly described. It is just that the warnings went unheeded and the problem has become extreme. Rather than watch the news (or go to a news website) read these excellent books: - The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner - Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman Rather than get distracted by news trivia, learn something from these books that have stood the test of time.

Reedx 8y ago

Serious question: Is there any good argument for consuming the news at all at this point?

minikites 8y ago

>Novels. Non-fiction. Memoirs. Biographies. Self-Help and the Classics. Just about anything bound between two covers will teach you something more than the latest headlines — and will do far more in regards to settling your soul. This is an awfully privileged point of view and you may want to examine your own privileges to think about why that might be. Example: I'm willing to bet the author and many people reading this don't have to worry about their voter registration information getting purged/invalidated or their polling place closing because that happens more often to lower income people who live in impoverished areas. If you have no awareness of current events, you could be unable to vote and it's likely that you would find out too late to correct it. Consuming the news will give you a chance to correct or protest these issues before registration deadlines pass.

beat 8y ago
Being fully conscious of privilege issues here... your comment sounds like Outrage Addiction to me. Yes, aware of problems with vote access. But those problems are fundamentally legislative, and won't be solved by treating the symptoms. Go to a state with sensible voting laws (my beloved Minnesota), and the system is immune, thanks to same day registration and provisional ballots. Even a concerted purge effort would crash against the well-designed system. These short-term election issues are a product of fundamentally bad design. Focus on fixing the design, not "protest". Moreover - and speaking of privileged perspective - there is nothing that says you can't pay attention to the news and read novels, memoirs, self-help books, and of course the classics. There is no plausible political situation where you can't squeeze an hour a day off your Twitter feed in order to spend it reading, say, American Nations, or The Cooking Gene, and learn some of the historical roots behind the news that's ruining your blood pressure today. There's a real distinction between urgent and important. I can recommend multiple good books on exactly that.
- minikites 8y ago
  >But those problems are fundamentally legislative, and won't be solved by treating the symptoms. Voting for new legislators isn't the way for citizens to address legislative issues?

66d8kk 8y ago

A couple of months ago I stopped daily consumption of news content (except technical links on HN ;) and began a physical subscription to The Week [1]. Come Saturday I sit down with a coffee for 45 minutes, catch up on the most important national and global news events (crucially from all types of leaning sources) and then go about my weekend. Highly recommended to those who enjoy keeping abreast but find themselves been dragged down psychologically on a daily basis. [1] - http://www.theweek.co.uk/ http://www.theweek.co.uk/ Edit - turns out there is a US equivalent: https://theweek.com/ https://theweek.com/

iliaznk 8y ago

Over a year ago I Stopped watching and reading any news except those I can see here on HN. Never looked back.

drblast 8y ago

I grew up in a very conservative household in the U.S. and when Bill Clinton was elected I watched my mother descend into a pit of anger, fueled by her constant attention to Rush Limbaugh and cable news. Her fixation on the Clinton presidency and news related to it was all-consuming. The sad thing was that she felt like she was making a difference and was actively engaged in the political process, much the same way that a rabid football fan feels like they are actually affecting the outcome of the games through their fandom. The amount of vitriol spewed toward Clinton in our house was nothing short of obsessive and in hindsight, pretty unhealthy. Looking back, one would easily wonder, "why? What was the big deal?" To this day any mention of the man will provoke a look of disgust and some derogatory remark from my mother. Realistically Clinton's presidency actually had very little effect on my family's life, and if we were completely ignorant of who was president at the time nothing would be different other than the constant level of angst. I live in a blue state now so I witness other people do the same thing my mother did but focused on Bush (the next Hitler!!!!) and then Trump (Uhhh...what do we call him now that "next Hitler" is already taken? I guess we'll just call him that but louder and angrier). I'd imagine that Obama got the same treatment in various other parts of the country. I also see this kind of reaction seems to replace rational thought and productive action that actually would make any sort of difference in the world with well, just hate.

beat 8y ago
Trump is interesting in that he's kind of a product of modern media-fueled outrage. Sometimes I call him President Clickbait. He says and does a lot of things because they are provocative and travel well. Both his lovers and his haters pay extraordinary attention to him. Makes me dread what the next president will be like.
lucretian 8y ago
> but focused on Bush (the next Hitler!!!!) bush launched a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. sometimes, strong negative reactions are justified.

Sea_Wulf 8y ago

> "Two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations, 'Are you distracted by breaking news? Then take some leisure time to learn something good, and stop bouncing around.'" Probably a minor quibble, as I do agree with the thesis to some degree, but the quote from Marcus Aurelius is utterly false. There is no such quote in Meditations at all[0], though Aurelius is a huge proponent of moving away from external distractions to concentrate on building yourself up. Indeed, he would probably agree with the article ("make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions" (Book 2:7)), but would rail against putting in a false statement ("The human soul degrades itself... when it puts on a mask and does or says something artificial or false." (Book 2:16) [0] http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf

sattoshi 8y ago
I got the impression that it was just a joke.

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spicymaki 8y ago

This is so true. My monkey brain cannot deal with the onslaught of cortisol triggering events.

Nasrudith 8y ago

Personally I think it is more a matter of quality than quantity with news. I stopped watching news over a decade or so ago because I could tell that it became vaucous space filling. Instead of covering events in depth they beat a topic to death with speculation and dropped it by the time it had an actual resolution. It was abundantly clear they were trying to avoid any real journalism as it would take work which costs money. I find news worth it as read and more in depth to the point it is more history say covering the hysteria over the VCR or past moral panics. Which I suppose sort of agrees with the article's point - seeking insights instead of ephemera. The ephemera is relevant however if one is involved with activism in some way even if it is just to donate twenty dollars to the defense of someone subject to some injustice.

Rotdhizon 8y ago

I haven't watched the news in several years at this point. I'll overhear a story or two occasionally when someone else in the house is watching it. The news upsets me more than anything. It's a majority violent/sad news, with the rare uplifting story. I don't want to start my morning with 4 stories on who got murdered/robbed/raped the night before. The news anymore puts so much emphasis on the negatives. Even on the negative stories, it's rarely about the journalism, it's more about splattering the accused person's name all over the screen. Frankly I don't care about the news. I don't care to about sports news, local happenings, crime stories, construction, etc. If I want to know about the weather, I'll use a weather based source, same goes for traffic. I will say that I also know people who watch the news too much, multiple times per day. These people live their lives based around what the news told them. Their interests, their fears, it all comes from the news. They don't think for themselves, they think what the news tells them they should think. I've seen their gradual change in thinking. They used to be a bit more out going, but now some of them are petrified to even leave their neighborhood because they think death is around every corner. The news has them so scared that violence is a foot away at any time. I have a few family members who take it to the extreme. The news has them convinced that almost everyone in the world is out to get them. The only people they aren't scared of are people they already know. If you're a stranger and try to talk to them, they automatically assume you are out to scam, harm, or otherwise 'get' them. All because the news focuses so heavily on violence and negativity anymore.

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tw1010 8y ago

I like to say I don't watch the news. But I'm also almost never surprised when news articles arises in discussion irl. So I guess I still consume a lot of news, it's just that I don't read the NYT much, but I get it from podcasts and HN and similar instead.

mindw0rk 8y ago

Does HN counts?

bovermyer 8y ago

"Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" by Hans Rosling, et al is a great book that's relevant to this subject.

AltruisticGap 8y ago

I've started thinking more seriously about this as well. When we're home, we like to think there is this whole wide world "out there". Behind the walls that surround us, is this world full of events and good things and bad things. Yet in actuality, it is all mind. And much of this mind (ie. memory) is not of having actually visited those places or experienced those events -- it's information that we were just fed (images, videos, myths and beliefs). It got me thinking about this saying "your body is what you put in it". Likewise then, "your world (and thus all your hopes and dreams) is what you put in it". I mean, I used to think this was some kind of New Age / pop psychology, like "positive thinking". But it isn't. By acknowledging the actual nature of this world right now, which is mostly in my mind right here as I type this message... then the validity of this becomes more evident. Everything I think, everything I do, comes from this internal map of self and of the world...

40acres 8y ago

Not sure I agree with this. After the 2016 election I was really wired into news. I watched a lot of CNN and was tuned in the 24 hour news cycle, after a couple of months I decided I didn't really like the way this news was delivered but still wanted to be informed. I turned to podcasts more and now listen to podcasts on policy, politics, technology and economics and I feel much more informed than the average citizen and intellectually stimulated. I think we should work on increasing the quantity of quality news as opposed to telling people to stay away from it. Full disclosure, here's my current media "diet" - Hacker news of course. - NYT subscription - NYT The Daily podcast (news of the day) - NPR Politics Podcast - Marketplace Podcast (economics) - Vox's Ezra Klein Show (wide range of policy experts interviewed) - Vox's The Weeds (conversations on political / economic policy) - Vox's Worldly (foreign affairs) - Marginal Revolution (economics) Admittedly it's a left leaning viewpoint and I'd like to find more conservative outlets but haven't been able to find interesting ones. I listened to Sam Harris for a while but over the past year he's shown a deep flaw w.r.t his views on race and unwillingness to be challenged.

chrisco255 8y ago
If you're into cheeky humor, I rather like Greg Gutfeld's The One, for a conservative podcast.
tropo 8y ago
The most significant conservative outlet is probably Breitbart, but if you'll settle for "not left leaning" then One America News Network (OAN or OANN) is excellent for being factual no-nonsense serious coverage. You can get One America News Network as a web site or phone app, and some lucky people can also get it as a cable TV channel.

computador 8y ago

Although I am not yet a subscriber, but plan to, I believe it is worth mentionning "Delayed Gratification" for those of you who are looking for a printed, curated source of current events around the world: https://www.slow-journalism.com/ https://www.slow-journalism.com/

RickJWagner 8y ago

I like to read headlines from RealClearPolitics. RCP has headlines from both sides of the aisle, equally bombastic. I can see at a glance how each side is spinning some issue and I can read neither or both if I want. It seems a good way to get some semblance of balance in the news.

stephengillie 8y ago

"News" isn't. If something important happens, someone will tell you, or it will be on HN or another site you visit. Fear losing your time and sanity more than fear of missing out.