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What got me to break out of this habit is realizing that the vast majority of what news sites/tv report on isn't remotely actionable or relevant for the average

What got me to break out of this habit is realizing that the vast majority of what news sites/tv report on isn't remotely actionable or relevant for the average viewer. It's basically something that scratches the itch of human curiosity, but with manipulative and lowest common denominator garbage. We'd all be better off if we scratched that curiosity itch by reading about things we're interested in, rather than current events.

gwbrooks 4y ago
^^^ This right here. Most daily-or-faster reporting is so shallow that consuming the information may, at times, be a net-negative to your understanding of whatever issue they're reporting about.
warner25 4y ago
I've moved towards this too, for better or worse. Between 18-25, I was very passionate about national politics and macroeconomics and consumed by following political news and fiery debates, as many young people are. As my adult responsibilities grew, I realized that the national political stuff was either irrelevant to my day-to-day life experience and / or not something that I could affect much (not actionable, as you said), and the return-on-investment of my time and attention on more immediate things was much higher. In my 30s now, I almost exclusively read and listen to things closely related to my own work and family finances and health. I guess there's a downside of political disengagement for society, though. Old people seem to become more engaged again when they have more free time, but maybe we end up with this donut hole of representation among people who are in the middle of working full-time and raising kids.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Do these fiery debates help? I say as someone who also was like this in my late teens. I do local advocacy for transit and civic planning related purposes in a US city. A lot of the "work" is really boring, just going to long public meetings and listening to SMEs drone about very specific issues. But that's where the sausage gets made. Our local transportation department is very receptive to the public's urban concerns and is doing a lot of great work. But they're blocked right now. Not just because their funding is uncertain or due to cranky old neighbors, but mostly because they have staff shortages as Baby Boomers retire. There's nothing we activists can do about this, we can't campaign for a measure or bill that puts butts into seats. If you go to Youtube or online North American urbanist forums though, folks aren't interested in these local issues at all. A lot of it is raving and ranting about how the US puts cars first and hates its people. This is fun to get emotional about (and believe me I've had enough close run-ins with cars as a pedestrian or cyclist to feel the rage) but doesn't actually materially affect our local urban conditions. But it's a lot less fun to talk about budget appropriation and staffing politics and much more fun to get angry at the GM Streetcar Conspiracy, so nobody does. I'm not saying these topics aren't important; if you're new to the issue it's important to understand why North American built environments are the way they are. But what's more important is working to change the reality around you, not getting wrapped up in online debates.
  - tayo42 4y ago
    There's a reddit post that pointed out how much of an outlier your personality has to be to be someone that actively posts online. These online discussions are almost never worth the effort and don't really represent average people.
  - specialist 4y ago
    Yup. Doing actual policy work negates a person's interest in infotainment (keyfabe). Similarly, working on campaigns reveals that most political commentary isn't even wrong, so not even worth debating. PS- > about how the US puts cars first And the flip side: How anything less than full throated praise for and life long devotion to cars, such as asking for safety improvements like sidewalks and bike paths, is part of a grand anti car conspiracy. Sure. There's 1.4b cars in the world, and growing. And me peddling to work 3 days a week is an existential threat to the world order.
- Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
  I think you incorrectly assume that "paying attention" makes your vote more informed. News generally doesn't "educate" (eg add knowledge to your views that then updates them), it confirms biases.
wolverine876 4y ago
Just choose better news sources. Plenty are serious and high-consequence information - much more than I have time to read, in fact.
- KoftaBob 4y ago
  Interesting, got any examples?
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Sure, but there's no deep secrets. Take away the partisan criticisms and smarter-than-though HN commentary, and there are few surprises (unless you go deep into news coverage). Newspapers are generally best - much more scale and room than TV or other options, and the most well-regarded have reputations for good reasons. (The trick is to ingnore the opinion pages, which are often no better than long HN comments.) * NY Times: Attacked from all sides by those in power, and for a good reason. * Washington Post: Smaller, and if I had to say, maybe not quite up to the NY Times * Financial Times: Expensive, but on par IMHO with the other two. * The Guardian can be excellent, but signal-to-noise (consequential-to-not) ratio isn't as strong as the others, IMHO. * The Economist: Free-market ideologues, but if you have to read one thing, they are most efficient. Not really journalism (they don't go out and dig up information, nor report their factual basis transparently with quotes, etc.; but short, efficient, sophisticated, very wide-ranging analysital pieces. * Poltico: I'm not sure what I think of them; I don't trust their ownership entirely [0], but they are seriously competing with the others, at least in national/international political news. The Wall Street Journal seems serious, but it's run by Rupert Murdoch. If people trusted the WSJ before, I don't know how they do now after the Dominion case revealed Murdoch openly manipulating reporting to favor Trump and others. ---- Another good options is curated news summaries. I'd look up Just Security's, for example. Politico also has some newsletters like NatSec Daily. Memeorandum can be great, if you skip over the less important stories. [0] Look up the NY Times reporting on Axel Springer's owner (Axel Springer bought Politico recently).
    - KoftaBob 4y ago

gwbrooks 4y ago

^^^ This right here. Most daily-or-faster reporting is so shallow that consuming the information may, at times, be a net-negative to your understanding of whatever issue they're reporting about.

warner25 4y ago

I've moved towards this too, for better or worse. Between 18-25, I was very passionate about national politics and macroeconomics and consumed by following political news and fiery debates, as many young people are. As my adult responsibilities grew, I realized that the national political stuff was either irrelevant to my day-to-day life experience and / or not something that I could affect much (not actionable, as you said), and the return-on-investment of my time and attention on more immediate things was much higher. In my 30s now, I almost exclusively read and listen to things closely related to my own work and family finances and health. I guess there's a downside of political disengagement for society, though. Old people seem to become more engaged again when they have more free time, but maybe we end up with this donut hole of representation among people who are in the middle of working full-time and raising kids.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Do these fiery debates help? I say as someone who also was like this in my late teens. I do local advocacy for transit and civic planning related purposes in a US city. A lot of the "work" is really boring, just going to long public meetings and listening to SMEs drone about very specific issues. But that's where the sausage gets made. Our local transportation department is very receptive to the public's urban concerns and is doing a lot of great work. But they're blocked right now. Not just because their funding is uncertain or due to cranky old neighbors, but mostly because they have staff shortages as Baby Boomers retire. There's nothing we activists can do about this, we can't campaign for a measure or bill that puts butts into seats. If you go to Youtube or online North American urbanist forums though, folks aren't interested in these local issues at all. A lot of it is raving and ranting about how the US puts cars first and hates its people. This is fun to get emotional about (and believe me I've had enough close run-ins with cars as a pedestrian or cyclist to feel the rage) but doesn't actually materially affect our local urban conditions. But it's a lot less fun to talk about budget appropriation and staffing politics and much more fun to get angry at the GM Streetcar Conspiracy, so nobody does. I'm not saying these topics aren't important; if you're new to the issue it's important to understand why North American built environments are the way they are. But what's more important is working to change the reality around you, not getting wrapped up in online debates.
- tayo42 4y ago
  There's a reddit post that pointed out how much of an outlier your personality has to be to be someone that actively posts online. These online discussions are almost never worth the effort and don't really represent average people.
- specialist 4y ago
  Yup. Doing actual policy work negates a person's interest in infotainment (keyfabe). Similarly, working on campaigns reveals that most political commentary isn't even wrong, so not even worth debating. PS- > about how the US puts cars first And the flip side: How anything less than full throated praise for and life long devotion to cars, such as asking for safety improvements like sidewalks and bike paths, is part of a grand anti car conspiracy. Sure. There's 1.4b cars in the world, and growing. And me peddling to work 3 days a week is an existential threat to the world order.
Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
I think you incorrectly assume that "paying attention" makes your vote more informed. News generally doesn't "educate" (eg add knowledge to your views that then updates them), it confirms biases.

wolverine876 4y ago

Just choose better news sources. Plenty are serious and high-consequence information - much more than I have time to read, in fact.

KoftaBob 4y ago
Interesting, got any examples?
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Sure, but there's no deep secrets. Take away the partisan criticisms and smarter-than-though HN commentary, and there are few surprises (unless you go deep into news coverage). Newspapers are generally best - much more scale and room than TV or other options, and the most well-regarded have reputations for good reasons. (The trick is to ingnore the opinion pages, which are often no better than long HN comments.) * NY Times: Attacked from all sides by those in power, and for a good reason. * Washington Post: Smaller, and if I had to say, maybe not quite up to the NY Times * Financial Times: Expensive, but on par IMHO with the other two. * The Guardian can be excellent, but signal-to-noise (consequential-to-not) ratio isn't as strong as the others, IMHO. * The Economist: Free-market ideologues, but if you have to read one thing, they are most efficient. Not really journalism (they don't go out and dig up information, nor report their factual basis transparently with quotes, etc.; but short, efficient, sophisticated, very wide-ranging analysital pieces. * Poltico: I'm not sure what I think of them; I don't trust their ownership entirely [0], but they are seriously competing with the others, at least in national/international political news. The Wall Street Journal seems serious, but it's run by Rupert Murdoch. If people trusted the WSJ before, I don't know how they do now after the Dominion case revealed Murdoch openly manipulating reporting to favor Trump and others. ---- Another good options is curated news summaries. I'd look up Just Security's, for example. Politico also has some newsletters like NatSec Daily. Memeorandum can be great, if you skip over the less important stories. [0] Look up the NY Times reporting on Axel Springer's owner (Axel Springer bought Politico recently).
  - KoftaBob 4y ago