Yep I went through a phase in my early/mid 20s where I was still in information sponge mode and started applying this to world news, as if somehow by absorbing

Yep I went through a phase in my early/mid 20s where I was still in information sponge mode and started applying this to world news, as if somehow by absorbing 100% of world news all the time, I'd be a "more informed citizen" and all the benefits of that. Now I will casually glance at google news once or twice a day, and my extended friends group has a chat thread where interesting/enraging/amusing headlines get posted with no expectation that it will spur conversation. I probably spend 30-45 min a day reading various articles between the two sources. That feels like the right amount of time to spend on current events. I will however fall down a "wikipedia hole" for an hour or more pretty regularly trying to understand the historical context of a situation. Me and my close buddies periodically (roughly once a year?) go through a phase where we individually swear off reading the news for a couple of weeks. It is refreshing. For the mid-terms cycle I don't think I followed any of the races at all, beyond checking fivethirtyeight to see who the projected winners would be, and then a follow up after. Strong agree that most news is clickbait.