I forget where I heard this, but one approach is to simply lag behind the news by a week or so, on the premise that anything meaningful to you as a citizen/vote

I forget where I heard this, but one approach is to simply lag behind the news by a week or so, on the premise that anything meaningful to you as a citizen/voter will continue to be relevant a week later. (Obviously there are exceptions for policy makers, or when some news is otherwise salient to one's profession.) In practice, a significant portion of the news habit is a sort of FOMO, a desire to be included in water-cooler conversations, complete with intelligent opinions and "hot takes". Which is fine as far as it goes; but, it does come at the cost of the emotional rollercoaster of a highly manipulative news cycle (not to mention tribal battle lines[0]). Those who focus their water-cooler game on relative trivialities like sports and pop culture might actually be on to something. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc