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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

#121

Post by tumblerz »

0xmohit wrote: post #99

Much of it isn't "news". It is mostly propaganda. Quoting Garry Kasparov: "The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth."

But Garry, why not both?

I concur, however. Like others, on this thread, I (slowly) eliminated nearly all news from my life over the last two years. Doing this has had a profound effect on my perspectives, but has also ruined a lot of "conversation" for me. Previously, I played along in various forms of political shittalkery, but now, I find it disturbing to hear/see.

Increasingly, I am concerned by the tone, content, and purpose of many (American) people's strongly-held positions. On occasion I have found that voicing a contrary opinion results in estrangement, but more worryingly, merely not voicing a validation is enough to achieve some alienation.

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

#122

Post by mawaldne »

deadalus wrote: post #39

I get very frustrated, sad and emotional when I read CNN or any of the major news sites. So I avoid it. Instead I use Wikipedia once a month : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/Septembe...

Great suggestion! I’m going to try this as well.

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

#123

Post by jader201 »

deadalus wrote: post #39

I get very frustrated, sad and emotional when I read CNN or any of the major news sites. So I avoid it. Instead I use Wikipedia once a month : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/Septembe...

The OP link is to September, but if you go to the main/parent link, it’s always the current month, which conveniently has today’s news at the top (reverse chronological):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

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

#125

Post by mark_l_watson »

Actually, watching “news” on TV is even worse that reading news. I spend five minutes every morning reading The Guardian’s morning email to US subscribers and I think that is time well spent.

I have fright spend a couple of hours a day obsessing and watching the news, and I politely tell them their behavior is idiotic.

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

#126

Post by paul7986 »

This coming from a highly partisan outlet.

To me all sides are a joke with both of their arbitrary soap opera drama (Hunter Biden, the Impeachment, the russia collusion junk, PizzaGate (lol that one). Stop with the madness and made up crap... tell voters what you will do for them and the issues that matter! Politics doesn't need to be reality TV but that's what it has become and not just because of only the reality tv star in office; again both sides feed this madness/reality tv drama b.s.

The Atlantic ... is a joke just like the majority outlets feeding this reality tv narrative! Which is just about each and everyone of them; most local news isnt as bad, though.

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

#127

Post by sixstringtheory »

robk wrote: post #93
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…

I enjoy reading The Economist and I’m glad that I’m able to filter out their editorialism from the facts. I think it’s easy to do due to their combination of forthrightness and writing style, plus my own ability to cut through the BS that I’ve worked hard to sharpen over many years.

The one thing I dislike about The Economist is their cover art. I grew to strongly dislike having some caricature of Trump or nuclear blasts staring me in the face all the time. Something something “living rent free in my head.” Except I was paying rent by paying the subscription.

I just want the information, and I’m happy to pay for it! But I reached a point where I couldn’t justify handing over that much money to them any more because it was unsettling having these images barge in at me every delivery or every time I took it out of my bag to crack it open. And they use the same lines other rags do: “if you read the economist, you’ll be informed, and to be informed is to be safe... now look at how the world is going to hell!” I felt like I was being negged as a subscriber.

There is a place for these works of art, I just wish it could be in the letter from the editor or one of their columns, all of which I appreciate.

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

#128

Post by vinbreau »

I reconnected with an old friend from childhood a few years ago. I knew he was politically opposite from me so I kept politics out of our conversations... do you know how hard that is? It's hard enough that it requires effort, effort that he noted. He accused me of being closed off and never saying what I really wanted to. I made it clear we should not go there.

He told me that several years ago watching the news made him physically ill and his GP told him to avoid news. His health improved. In 2016 he admitted to me he does not watch any news, read any news, but he believes in voting. I asked him how he could vote if he hasn't educated himself on the candidates. How a person like me who thinks you either eat politics or it eats you, sees an uninformed voter, proudly ignorant of the candidates, but voting with his gut, what am I supposed to say? This deeply offended him. He then accused me of living in a bubble despite the fact I read news from all over and he reads none.

I asked him how should educated voters feel about gut-feeling voters with uneducated opinions? I think his response was "Fuck off". We do not talk anymore because any subject he brought up that had any hint of politics to it was an empty conversation. I would bring up things related to the subject and he would default to making jokes. Serious conversation was beyond him.

Tone deaf, dumb, and blind. He eventually said he found all women of my wife's race "unattractive" and then could not understand why I was upset at him. Ex-Navy man, ex-Nuclear Engineer, ex-friend.

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

#129

Post by kyle_martin1 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #110
kyle_martin1 wrote: post #82

Worth a read for explanation as to why: https://rb.gy/81ygny

this is a link to the wikipedia page on "Trump Derangement Syndrome", and contains little, if any, "explanation as to why". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome

Reading too much negative anything is bad for the psyche. It just so happens that the MSM is full-on TDS and they can't seem to let go. Trump is the blackhole for MSM, everything is somehow connected to "Orange Man Bad".

Moreover, the Washington Post reported that 90% of Trump's coverage is negative [1].

Do you know anyone that is 90% terrible? I doubt it. Taking a step back from one's political views, which is hard for a lot of people, it becomes obvious that there's little honest and unbiased reporting going on within MSM.

Sure it's fine to read information with a particular viewpoint (be it conservative or liberal), as long as the reader is made aware that the "facts" are framed from a particular viewpoint. Otherwise it's just brainwashing and intellectually dishonest. I think any rational person can get behind this sort of "zero-trust framework".

[1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/15/a-broadcast...

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

#130

Post by awak3ning »

deadalus wrote: post #39

I get very frustrated, sad and emotional when I read CNN or any of the major news sites. So I avoid it. Instead I use Wikipedia once a month : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/Septembe...

That's a very good resource, I find that even if one truly believes that the news or political media is not warping your vision of reality and your beliefs that is not the case. Once you step back and view the situation from the outside, then you really start to understand how people's nervous systems are being regulated and influenced by the media.
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