Ask HN: How do you read the news without getting depressed?

I don’t want to stop following the news for fear of not knowing what’s going on, but I’m finding that reading the daily news leads my thoughts into a dark place of dwelling on all the miseries I’m powerless to fix.

How do you do it?

Don't read the news.

You don’t have to know everything that’s going on. It won’t change your life and you often won’t have the means to affect the situation.

For example, I don’t know what’s going on in New Zealand. I’ve heard vague things about the shooting from people talking about it but I’m not even going to bother looking it up.

People die every day for depressing reasons. This is just another event that is only differentiated by the fact that it captured the attention of a Western audience.

Instead, I’m focusing on other things that I’ve already decided need my time. Don’t let the news set your agenda. You can be informed on a slower cadence despite what people and the 24/7 news factory would want you to believe.

One thing I think a lot people are pretty bad at is filtering content. We're overloaded with content now, and I hear a lot of people saying "X is bad because there's bad content" where X can be Hacker News, Reddit, Twitter the news, etc.

I've never really understand that, because it discounts the fact that there is enormous value in every medium, you just have to skip the bad stuff.

I don't even notice that I do it, but hearing that made me realize how quickly I scan any of those media and just cherry pick the content I find valuable.

Maybe I'm just not as curious as other people, but I feel no obligation to read or look at something if it fails a 2 second gut check of "does this add value to my life?" No doubt, I probably skip a lot of good stuff, but I'm fine with the false negatives if I feel like I'm getting the valuable stuff I want frequently enough.

It’s important to consider what “the news” is. Pre-cable TV, it was 30 minutes a night to summarize everything in the world. As I understand it, it was closer to a public service than profit-seeking content.

Cable news changed everything, because then there was all day news, and competition between news sources. To succeed, it’s about engagement, not education. This has become amplified with the internet. All of the incentives are in place to manipulate you with emotional triggers and take advantage of your sympathies to get your clicks.

Not only does this not keep you “informed,” it actually helps give you an incorrect worldview that’s overly pessimistic.

To get a much better understanding of the world, and how to navigate this sort of media coverage, read the book Factfulness. It’s a much better use of your time and it turns out that the world is a much different place than the narratives you find in clickbait.