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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

#91

Post by noneeeed »

yashap wrote: post #65

This point rings strongly true to me. I have a number of members of friends/family who have become very difficult to be around, because they’ve become so intense/constantly outraged about politics, even if they are on the same end of the political spectrum as me: > The research doesn’t reveal precisely why we tend to dislike overly political people, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that constant foam…

This is basically why I stopped using Twitter. Reading a dozen of my friends expressing basically the same thought at the same time, even though I agreed with it, was just getting tideous. In hindsight it took me way too long to realise how much time I was wasting on it.

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

#92

Post by baron816 »

loughnane wrote: post #90

The economist is great for this. Views aside, getting a single bolus of well-considered, well-written news once a week is wonderful. You “miss out” on the “did you hear what X said” water cooler talk, but the gains in understanding and attention are significant

I think more should adopt The Economist model. Yes, they definitely have an opinion, and they push it, but they're open about it and are fair to other sides. It's much better than feigning impartiality, or doing a half-hearted "both sides"ing.

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

#93

Post by robk »

loughnane wrote: post #90

The economist is great for this. Views aside, getting a single bolus of well-considered, well-written news once a week is wonderful. You “miss out” on the “did you hear what X said” water cooler talk, but the gains in understanding and attention are significant

In the past five or size years the Economist has sadly become quite partisan and unreadable..in their trump derangement they've lost a lot of the even keel view they'd previously had over the prior decades I'd been a reader. Sadly I still read but effectively skip all politics as the new Eric Schmidt led board have certainly co-opted the formerly drier view the editors formerly would have taken in exchange for a more activist view which is far out of character for them. Sad because it was once a must read end to end to years for me. Now it's a skim for 35-45% unique content type of publication.. No one else covers the breadth of intriguing topics like African politics but the anti Brexit UK and anti Trump US political angle ruins most of the other content for the major western economies.

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

#94

Post by mensetmanusman »

dageshi wrote: post #73
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.

That would have only been true had he also been attacked by murder hornets.

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

#95

Post by cblconfederate »

taxicab wrote: post #84
dageshi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The news actually feels like it's just messing with me now. We live in the timeline where Osama Bin Laden's QAnon conspiracy theorist neice went on Fox News to say that she is really an American at heart and to give Trump her endorsement. WHAT??? Looks like the writers decided to bring back a reference to two seasons ago. [1] https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/tucker-...

Damn the plot is thickening

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

#96

Post by mensetmanusman »

pjc50 wrote: post #38
verroq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won’t call some of these reporters journalists, they are more like activists. They aren’t interested in keeping society informed, they just want to push their agenda.

The only worthwhile journalism is activism. Discomfort the powerful. Unfortunately it's dangerous to be too good at this, see Daphne Caruana Galizia.

This opinion is quite new. Unfortunately journalism has been coopted by such folks.

We do need activists, but they don’t have to be journalists. Maybe these groups on youtube that are just filming things without interrupting with questions are the journalists of the future ... https://youtu.be/pW_jsS_JnMY

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

#97

Post by inglor_cz »

yashap wrote: post #65

This point rings strongly true to me. I have a number of members of friends/family who have become very difficult to be around, because they’ve become so intense/constantly outraged about politics, even if they are on the same end of the political spectrum as me: > The research doesn’t reveal precisely why we tend to dislike overly political people, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to guess that constant foam…

But Facebook and Twitter can sell many more ads this way.

We are manipulated into constant outrage for someone else's profit.

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

#100

Post by rootsudo »

>Don't read the news, don't stay informed.

>If you read too much news, it's bad for you.

I do enjoy the idea of a newsbubble, as it really does not add much to your everyday life, knowing something bad happened here, or there - because the news is a marketing machine of commercials and local interests that sell your attention to sell stuff.

But, it's also hilarious how they say too much is bad, it's akin to buzzfeed saying these websites are good, these that don't agree with us is bad. --

I use a pihole, but you can just add a rule into your HOSTS file or local firewall to block access and untrain your body. I used to always be on reddit, consuming, not really contributing much.

Then I realized I spend way to much time, reading, which itself, is not a bad thing, but then I realized the communities of the people who may post in them may not be the best or really useful/smartest and then some communities turn into a "selfie" parade to whomever has some small budget can easily swing conversation.

Then I stopped going, and missed nothing. Once I realized the people online wouldn't be the ones I would normally want to be "seen" with or socialize with, it helped break the distinction and neutrality of a screen with words on it.

Now I'm more careful of whom I read articles from online, and forums, it's pretty much hit or miss, good for opinion swaying but any true info I make sure to verify and not rely solely on Google/AMP links, but if they are published and which vector of publishing are they on (from New York Times to Dailymail for example.)

And even then it isn't enough, all news suck and really does not matter to you.

Stoicism is best.

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