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Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB. "I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the worl

Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB. "I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet. My late father, in the final year of his life, claimed that he finally found that long-sought serenity by no longer reading the papers and watching television. Even then, and I was thirty years younger than he, I knew what he meant. What devotees of sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the torments that those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on their minds almost every hour of the day." https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/ https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/ Edit: Charles Simic is a Serbian-American poet who lived through WWII and saw some really grisly things, some described briefly in the article, hence "after everything I had lived through and learned in my life..."

somishere 6y ago
Thanks, this hits close to the bone. There's definitely a connectedness in the tragedy of it all.
- frereubu 6y ago
  The only thing that works for me is what worked for his dad - don't read it. Make sure you read around at times when it's relevant - before you vote for example - but don't torture yourself with news that (a) isn't actionable and (b) isn't relevant to you. I've steadily weaned myself off social networks, and am now doing the same for news sites. I've started reading more books (I prefer physical books because I find even having an electronic device in my hand like an old Kindle triggers a desire to check email etc.), I'm calmer, and more focused on what's around me like nature and my family. It's not been easy, particularly given that I sit in front of a computer all day for work, but it's worth finding ways to resist the triggers, which can be as simple as taking a deep breath, closing a tab, then repeat until you have no tabs left...
  - jacknews 6y ago
    A problem with factual books is the format. Sometimes a concept only needs 50 pages to explain, support, and explore implications, yet grows to 300 pages to fill the format.
    - frereubu 6y ago
      This is true, but I regularly get recommended good non-fiction books by friends which don't suffer from that, so they are out there.
Dangeranger 6y ago
I appreciate this. Watching the news cycle feels like being in an abusive relationship. You watch and wait for the next eruption, anticipating if it will be violent or joyful. It leaves you feeling depleted and helpless.
- GreeniFi 6y ago
  On a non-subjective basis, there are many bad things going on in the world, with implications for both ourselves and our families. A genuine question: is it access to news or content of the news that messes with our sense of wellbeing? Does “the media” upset me, or knowledge, for example that climate models appear to be more conservative than reality, upset me? In not reading the news, are we simply happy in the way ostriches are happy when they place their heads in the sand?
  - monoideism 6y ago
    > climate models appear to be more conservative than reality I've read this sentence multiple times and still not sure what it means. Would you please expound?
    - mmierz 6y ago
      “Conservative” here is being used to mean “marked by moderation or caution”, rather than the set of political positions called conservatism. The poster is saying that global climate change is probably even worse than people think. Often, the reporting around climate change focuses on the best case, the average case, or what could be achieved with an immediate strong response. But the actual paths we are on seems to track some of the worse, more pessimistic cases.
      - netsharc 6y ago
        I wouldn't blame the reporting... the scientists are also very conservative, because they're afraid of being labeled doom-sayers by deniers.
kampsduac 6y ago
> no longer reading the papers and watching television This is what I do, in addition to no social media except for certain personal alerts. I ask my partner to relay any significant news/events to me. I do support my local media group The Colorado Sun with a membership and sometimes read through their articles, which don't have advertisements so they are not incentivised to produce click-bait headlines and sponsored/addictive/entertainment content.
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  > This is what I do, in addition to no social media except for certain personal alerts. I ask my partner to relay any significant news/events to me. It sounds like you've partly outsourced the problem to your partner then. What does your partner do?
- tgb 6y ago
  You don't consider HN to be social media?
  - Fiveplus 6y ago
    I consider internet boards like HN a pre-cursor to all dark-pattern-laden "social" "media" today. So yes in a sense, we're all communicating and this is social media. Now, we wait while someone comes to dispute my personal interpretation of the words, but yeah my $0.02 have been deposited.
    - tgb 6y ago
      Don't you believe it has largely the same negatives as other social media like Twitter or Facebook? (At least in terms of the present topic that "news is addictive".) Why drop one but not the other?
      - Fiveplus 6y ago
        Fair point, why not drop all and become an internet hermit relying solely on RSS feeds? But then again, aren't these feeds addictive? Don't they leave you asking for more? At what point in the discussion of internet content can we truly(as a userbase) call it non-addictive then? I'm the furthest thing from an expert on the matter so for me, a website that opens once a week at 17:00 EST for a duration of 2 hours might even do the job. Can't say it hasn't crossed my mind. This is a very tricky and subjective issue. What do you think?
Balgair 6y ago
Great quote I feel that way too. 2 ways that I've found some refuge in the chaos that is the hyper-modern world: 1) More news. Flood your brain. Find all the news sources you can in your chosen language. Most big-time newspapers have an English-language resource. Look at those. Once, I put the online English version of the top 100 newspapers in the world (by circulation and if they had an English version) in my morning readings. I'd have to open them all at once and then go through each of the 100 tabs and skim them and close each one. You get really good skimming the world's news that way and really seeing what is important internationally: US politics, cyclones/hurricanes/weather, sports, etc. 2) Read a book. Books tend to draw you in much better than the news. At least the better-ish books. Though it's not as easy as chewing the candy that is Twitter, the 'classics' are a great jumping in point. Struggling to read and grok a few pages of Dante's Inferno does become preferable after a time. Lists of classic literature abound and nearly any of them are top-notch.
- war1025 6y ago
  > Read a book. Non-fiction books have driven my world opinions more than any other source (besides I suppose lived experience). One sad thing about the past few months is I no longer find time to read. My wife does ebooks, but I just can't get into them. On the plus side, I'm getting a lot of projects done around that house.
tossthere 6y ago
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothings from my teenage years rambling about conspiracy theories. The entire time they’re talking about whatever is happening in the news, I’m just thinking: “Who decided that this was important to you, and why did you let them decide that?” I have family members that can’t pay their rent on time or remember to feed their kids breakfast, but they’ve got the geopolitical dynamics of the US and Russia all figured out. They solved it. Others talk endlessly about their opinions about all subjects deemed important by the news. They speak with passion as if the opinions and convictions are their own, yet every single stance they take conveniently mirrors whatever was favored in whatever media they consumed. None of them ever express an original thought. Every single one of them just chooses a selection of things they heard and repeats it. I’ve been doing this long enough that I think I can see how this is going to turn out for me long-term. Name anything that happened 5 years ago. If it’s significant, I remember it. If it isn’t, I never heard about it at all, and nobody else remembers it either. I’m by farrrrrrrr the happiest person I know, to the point that I literally feel guilty about it sometimes. I just have so much time for my career that I’ve zipped past everybody, so much time for family. It might be the single best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’m really thankful that I figured it out this young.
- silicon2401 6y ago
  I feel the exact same way. If there's something really important, it'll make its way to me. If there's something I want to know, I'll make my way to it. Otherwise it probably wasn't worth my time. Like you, I read about and hear acquaintances talk about anxiety, etc from the news so often, and just feel like I'm talking to someone complaining about sunburn and continuing to go out without sun protection
- SamBam 6y ago
  > I completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. ... I seem to be better-informed. How do these square? How is it that you become informed?
kkylin 6y ago
That was beautifully said. Thank you for sharing. Alas, gems like this is also why I'm addicted to HN.
mistersquid 6y ago
Good as it is, the first paragraph of Simic's short essay which you quote is preliminary. Later, these two paragraphs capture Simic's mood more completely and that mood cuts into the "bliss" of being unencumbered by news: > I mustn’t forget, either, that I was surrounded by political exiles in my youth, many of whom, after having lived either under Stalin or Hitler, or in some cases both, never lost their vigilance. Even after twenty or thirty years in the United States, they gave the impression of keeping a suitcase packed under their beds, ready to flee at a moment’s notice should hippies or some variety of American fascists come power. > Lucky for them, they are all long dead, so they can’t read some opinion piece or hear a congressman or a senator today clamor for the very same police state measures they barely escaped from. Watching the government of the country they grew to love curtailing liberties, spying on its citizens, militarizing its police forces, imprisoning both foreigners and Americans indefinitely without having to prove their guilt, and coming to admire the mindset of authoritarian regimes it used to despise, would have been both terrifying and depressing. They could not help but note that some of their fellow Americans who cheer for the death penalty and for torture, and call the people demonstrating against Wall Street lice-infested misfits and degenerates, are no better than the ones they knew back home and are as eager to persecute, imprison, and even commit murder should they be called upon (I think people who clap for death, love war without end, and adore guns are perfectly capable of it). My mother, who never recalled anything but trouble, and was sure the worst was yet to come, would be saying, I told you so, all day long.
haecceity 6y ago
Why allow yourself be tormented by something you have no control over?

somishere 6y ago

Thanks, this hits close to the bone. There's definitely a connectedness in the tragedy of it all.

frereubu 6y ago
The only thing that works for me is what worked for his dad - don't read it. Make sure you read around at times when it's relevant - before you vote for example - but don't torture yourself with news that (a) isn't actionable and (b) isn't relevant to you. I've steadily weaned myself off social networks, and am now doing the same for news sites. I've started reading more books (I prefer physical books because I find even having an electronic device in my hand like an old Kindle triggers a desire to check email etc.), I'm calmer, and more focused on what's around me like nature and my family. It's not been easy, particularly given that I sit in front of a computer all day for work, but it's worth finding ways to resist the triggers, which can be as simple as taking a deep breath, closing a tab, then repeat until you have no tabs left...
- jacknews 6y ago
  A problem with factual books is the format. Sometimes a concept only needs 50 pages to explain, support, and explore implications, yet grows to 300 pages to fill the format.
  - frereubu 6y ago
    This is true, but I regularly get recommended good non-fiction books by friends which don't suffer from that, so they are out there.

Dangeranger 6y ago

I appreciate this. Watching the news cycle feels like being in an abusive relationship. You watch and wait for the next eruption, anticipating if it will be violent or joyful. It leaves you feeling depleted and helpless.

GreeniFi 6y ago
On a non-subjective basis, there are many bad things going on in the world, with implications for both ourselves and our families. A genuine question: is it access to news or content of the news that messes with our sense of wellbeing? Does “the media” upset me, or knowledge, for example that climate models appear to be more conservative than reality, upset me? In not reading the news, are we simply happy in the way ostriches are happy when they place their heads in the sand?
- monoideism 6y ago
  > climate models appear to be more conservative than reality I've read this sentence multiple times and still not sure what it means. Would you please expound?
  - mmierz 6y ago
    “Conservative” here is being used to mean “marked by moderation or caution”, rather than the set of political positions called conservatism. The poster is saying that global climate change is probably even worse than people think. Often, the reporting around climate change focuses on the best case, the average case, or what could be achieved with an immediate strong response. But the actual paths we are on seems to track some of the worse, more pessimistic cases.
    - netsharc 6y ago
      I wouldn't blame the reporting... the scientists are also very conservative, because they're afraid of being labeled doom-sayers by deniers.

kampsduac 6y ago

> no longer reading the papers and watching television This is what I do, in addition to no social media except for certain personal alerts. I ask my partner to relay any significant news/events to me. I do support my local media group The Colorado Sun with a membership and sometimes read through their articles, which don't have advertisements so they are not incentivised to produce click-bait headlines and sponsored/addictive/entertainment content.

oarsinsync 6y ago
> This is what I do, in addition to no social media except for certain personal alerts. I ask my partner to relay any significant news/events to me. It sounds like you've partly outsourced the problem to your partner then. What does your partner do?
tgb 6y ago
You don't consider HN to be social media?
- Fiveplus 6y ago
  I consider internet boards like HN a pre-cursor to all dark-pattern-laden "social" "media" today. So yes in a sense, we're all communicating and this is social media. Now, we wait while someone comes to dispute my personal interpretation of the words, but yeah my $0.02 have been deposited.
  - tgb 6y ago
    Don't you believe it has largely the same negatives as other social media like Twitter or Facebook? (At least in terms of the present topic that "news is addictive".) Why drop one but not the other?
    - Fiveplus 6y ago
      Fair point, why not drop all and become an internet hermit relying solely on RSS feeds? But then again, aren't these feeds addictive? Don't they leave you asking for more? At what point in the discussion of internet content can we truly(as a userbase) call it non-addictive then? I'm the furthest thing from an expert on the matter so for me, a website that opens once a week at 17:00 EST for a duration of 2 hours might even do the job. Can't say it hasn't crossed my mind. This is a very tricky and subjective issue. What do you think?

Balgair 6y ago

Great quote I feel that way too. 2 ways that I've found some refuge in the chaos that is the hyper-modern world: 1) More news. Flood your brain. Find all the news sources you can in your chosen language. Most big-time newspapers have an English-language resource. Look at those. Once, I put the online English version of the top 100 newspapers in the world (by circulation and if they had an English version) in my morning readings. I'd have to open them all at once and then go through each of the 100 tabs and skim them and close each one. You get really good skimming the world's news that way and really seeing what is important internationally: US politics, cyclones/hurricanes/weather, sports, etc. 2) Read a book. Books tend to draw you in much better than the news. At least the better-ish books. Though it's not as easy as chewing the candy that is Twitter, the 'classics' are a great jumping in point. Struggling to read and grok a few pages of Dante's Inferno does become preferable after a time. Lists of classic literature abound and nearly any of them are top-notch.

war1025 6y ago
> Read a book. Non-fiction books have driven my world opinions more than any other source (besides I suppose lived experience). One sad thing about the past few months is I no longer find time to read. My wife does ebooks, but I just can't get into them. On the plus side, I'm getting a lot of projects done around that house.

tossthere 6y ago

I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people who follow news daily. Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m reminded of the know-nothings from my teenage years rambling about conspiracy theories. The entire time they’re talking about whatever is happening in the news, I’m just thinking: “Who decided that this was important to you, and why did you let them decide that?” I have family members that can’t pay their rent on time or remember to feed their kids breakfast, but they’ve got the geopolitical dynamics of the US and Russia all figured out. They solved it. Others talk endlessly about their opinions about all subjects deemed important by the news. They speak with passion as if the opinions and convictions are their own, yet every single stance they take conveniently mirrors whatever was favored in whatever media they consumed. None of them ever express an original thought. Every single one of them just chooses a selection of things they heard and repeats it. I’ve been doing this long enough that I think I can see how this is going to turn out for me long-term. Name anything that happened 5 years ago. If it’s significant, I remember it. If it isn’t, I never heard about it at all, and nobody else remembers it either. I’m by farrrrrrrr the happiest person I know, to the point that I literally feel guilty about it sometimes. I just have so much time for my career that I’ve zipped past everybody, so much time for family. It might be the single best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’m really thankful that I figured it out this young.

silicon2401 6y ago
I feel the exact same way. If there's something really important, it'll make its way to me. If there's something I want to know, I'll make my way to it. Otherwise it probably wasn't worth my time. Like you, I read about and hear acquaintances talk about anxiety, etc from the news so often, and just feel like I'm talking to someone complaining about sunburn and continuing to go out without sun protection
SamBam 6y ago
> I completely stopped all news watching/reading entirely. ... I seem to be better-informed. How do these square? How is it that you become informed?

kkylin 6y ago

That was beautifully said. Thank you for sharing. Alas, gems like this is also why I'm addicted to HN.

mistersquid 6y ago

Good as it is, the first paragraph of Simic's short essay which you quote is preliminary. Later, these two paragraphs capture Simic's mood more completely and that mood cuts into the "bliss" of being unencumbered by news: > I mustn’t forget, either, that I was surrounded by political exiles in my youth, many of whom, after having lived either under Stalin or Hitler, or in some cases both, never lost their vigilance. Even after twenty or thirty years in the United States, they gave the impression of keeping a suitcase packed under their beds, ready to flee at a moment’s notice should hippies or some variety of American fascists come power. > Lucky for them, they are all long dead, so they can’t read some opinion piece or hear a congressman or a senator today clamor for the very same police state measures they barely escaped from. Watching the government of the country they grew to love curtailing liberties, spying on its citizens, militarizing its police forces, imprisoning both foreigners and Americans indefinitely without having to prove their guilt, and coming to admire the mindset of authoritarian regimes it used to despise, would have been both terrifying and depressing. They could not help but note that some of their fellow Americans who cheer for the death penalty and for torture, and call the people demonstrating against Wall Street lice-infested misfits and degenerates, are no better than the ones they knew back home and are as eager to persecute, imprison, and even commit murder should they be called upon (I think people who clap for death, love war without end, and adore guns are perfectly capable of it). My mother, who never recalled anything but trouble, and was sure the worst was yet to come, would be saying, I told you so, all day long.

haecceity 6y ago

Why allow yourself be tormented by something you have no control over?