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Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

theatlantic.com

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Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#71

Post by kabdib »

dublinben wrote: post #34
cblconfederate wrote: post #22

What are we supposed to read then? Politics is the current day s soap opera

Books. Replace the instant gratification of doomscrolling with more thoughtful consumption that encourages self-reflection rather than reaction.

It's a good time to re-visit old friends on the shelf, or find new ones.

I picked up a series that I'd stuck a bookmark in 30 years ago, and I wish I'd continued reading it back then. On the other hand, I have roughly 2,000 pages of greenfields escapist fantasy to crawl into. [For a number of reasons, I won't mention the series]

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#72

Post by binaryorganic »

On the Media (podcast) ran a good piece Friday about how the problem with news (especially right now with the election) is that journalists are treating the candidates as the protagonists of their own stories (and the media then get the voter reactions to what those protagonists deem important) when what’s needed is for us voters to be the protagonists who set the priorities for what the campaigns should be talking about.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#73

Post by dageshi »

cblconfederate wrote: post #22

What are we supposed to read then? Politics is the current day s soap opera

When Trump caught Covid I actually thought to myself that this is a soap opera plot from a parallel dimension and the writers had just jumped the shark.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#76

Post by CapitalistCartr »

More accurately, GIGO: those that watch garbage sources, i.e. Fox, MSNBC, are poorly informed compared to those getting news from more legitimate sources such as NPR, BBC, etc.

If you want a quality education in anything, choose your sources carefully. For instance, Al Jazeera is a good source, except on the subject of Qatar.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#77

Post by mywacaday »

kabdib wrote: post #63

I put myself into a news bubble about six weeks ago. I still very occasionally read local news and a mainstream front page (say, every few days), which seems sufficient to let me know what's going on in broad terms. Stuff leaks into the bubble (e.g., via HN) but the point is not to be totally isolated, just not to get caught in hours-long doom spirals. I've given money to the campaigns that are going to get money fro…

I put myself in a semi news bubble about 6 months ago, no longer check the news daily or watch TV news. Now if I could only stop checking HN multiple times a day....

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#78

Post by adriand »

nharada wrote: post #67
kabdib wrote: post #63

I put myself into a news bubble about six weeks ago. I still very occasionally read local news and a mainstream front page (say, every few days), which seems sufficient to let me know what's going on in broad terms. Stuff leaks into the bubble (e.g., via HN) but the point is not to be totally isolated, just not to get caught in hours-long doom spirals. I've given money to the campaigns that are going to get money fro…

Same, my new routine is I receive a daily news briefing email in the morning and read that, and then don't read/watch any other news for the rest of the day. I feel relatively informed but no longer feel as depressed as when I would check the front page of news sites every hour. The other plus side to this is that the whiplash of rapidly developing news is never an issue. Previously the news headlines would speculate…

I also instituted a news blackout about three weeks ago, with the intent to (perhaps) resume reading the news on Nov 5. In 2016 I spent an inordinate amount of time hooked on election news. This year I decided to spend my time more productively (as a Canadian, I can’t even vote in the US elections, so I’m ultra powerless).

Anecdotally, I do feel happier. I’ve also poured the time I previously spent on news consumption into studying and making music, and it’s just generally a more positive mental environment for me.

I may decide to switch to a less in-the-moment mode of news consumption, such as getting an Economist subscription and only reading the paper magazine when it arrives. Or maybe the NYT Saturday paper only, or something. I feel a duty to be an informed citizen but the ceaseless noise and sense of angry powerlessness doesn’t make me feel happy or satisfied.

Re: Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being

#79

Post by xwdv »

I feel that most people would benefit more from reading or watching financial news rather than political news.

Financial news is about numbers and events that pertain to companies relevant to people's everyday life. Financial news is immediately actionable, you could choose to invest your money based on your interpretation of what's going on in markets or various companies. Politics will occasionally creep their way in, but not in a way that dominates the conversation or appeals to emotion.

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