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Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#41

Post by kampsduac »

frereubu wrote: post #21

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 expect…

> 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.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#42

Post by theduder99 »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #25
chvid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the words of Morrissey: Stop reading the news.

Why would you quote him of all people. The guy is a racist at worst and a bigot at best.

I like hitler's moustache. is that ok with you?

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#43

Post by oarsinsync »

kampsduac wrote: post #41
frereubu wrote: post #21

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 expect…

> 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…

> 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?

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#44

Post by lkvoid »

chvid wrote: post #27
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you quote him of all people. The guy is a racist at worst and a bigot at best.

I am just one of those people who can listen to Wagner without invading Poland ...

That's a straw man statement. Listening to something is not the same as sharing a quote from a horrible person.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#46

Post by phoe-krk »

They're designed to be. The more emotional outrage they provoke in you, the more you spend engaging with them by reading more news, writing online comments, or even if the outrage happens once you've already closed the given webpage, giving you a need to read even more of them.

That's how they get views, ad revenue, and user-generated comments - out of an army of addicted people.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#47

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

Perhaps we need to view 'news' through the lens of 'is this information' before reading and therefore allowing it to impact how we feel about our lives. News being an event that may or may not impact your life, vs. information that can be assimilated to improve your life. Or perhaps, did you seek out the information because you need to learn something, or, are you reading what is being presented to you unprompted by a service that profits from you viewing it?

There is some news that matters, in terms of how you or those that matter to you can be impacted. For example, the state of the economy as pertains to your employment can help you forecast interruptions in work. Or in other economic cases, enable you to forecast where good investments will be. Or someone you admire passing away.

In political terms, changes in direction of leadership can forecast changes in lifestyle. Many nations could be given as an example, Iran, Syria, Turkey.

What does not matter, ever, as far as I can tell, is the type of 'rare incident' such as a shark attack killing a surfer, or a wildfire in another country that killed some unfortunate people, or locust swarms in Asia when you've never left South America. It matters to people directly affected, of course, but if you're half a world away, every day some bad event is going to transpire somewhere that could literally never affect your life. Does it benefit you to be aware of this?

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#48

Post by smoe »

somishere wrote: post #6
0dana wrote: post #4

My understanding is it’s the little thrill your brain gets from the possibility of finding something super interesting. That’s the addicting piece. The gambling piece of it. I read (or more likely heard on a podcast) about an experiment with mice and a food dispensing button. In one case, the button reliably dispensed food every time it was pressed. In the other case, sometimes the button wouldn’t work. The mice with…

Yes. I like this. Now, how to resolve it?

I stopped reading news, including tech news, in 2012, while working at a large news site. Seeing how the sausage is made, helped a lot realizing of just how little value reading news to a normal person is. (Note that that this is very different from saying journalism has no value or nobody should be reporting on current events)

I resolved, my news addiction, by redirecting the time I would have scanned ~12 different news sites multiple times a day, into reading more substantial content. Be that more long form (investigative) journalism, books written on a topic, studies, etc. Content, that let you actually understand the why of things, not just the what that is happening.

How to filter on which things to focus on, or tame the fear of missing out came naturally with the realization, that if something is important enough for me to care about (be that politcal or a new javascript framework), it will reach me eventually one way or another.

Also for big sudden events, like for example a terrorist attack, no matter how reputable and connected the news paper, in the beginning nobody has any solid information, which doesn't stop anyone from reporting and wildly speculating. It might be tough to just ignore that, especially since people will think you don't care, but beyond some basic facts, you won't be able to get any useful information for at least a couple of weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#49

Post by shlant »

not sure if this resonates with anyone else, but from my own experience (especially back when I had really bad anxiety) I think a major draw of news is the perceived feeling of safety from being "in the know". I believed that the more I knew about what was going on in the world, the safer I would be without necessarily taking action based on the information. I think it was as if not reading the news was like being in a dark room where my mind was free to conjure up a multitude of awful things/situation lurking in the dark, but by reading what was gong on and grounding those fears in something "real", it gave me the sense that the world was not so scary or I could at least better react/protect myself by "knowing"/"illuminating" the darkness.

Of course all this mostly just fed into my fears and just exacerbated my anxiety-induced hyper vigilance and paranoia, but I really think that there was a part of me that saw benefit in being aware of the state of the world through news (both mainstream and alternative).

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive?

#50

Post by GreeniFi »

Dangeranger wrote: post #38
frereubu wrote: post #21

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 expect…

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.

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?

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