Reading too much political news is bad for your well-being • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by im3w1l » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

diego wrote: post #263

cynicalkane wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1] sounds like a good quote, but keep in mind that the author of that quote was a tacit supporter of Leininsm and Stalinism, and initially supported East Germany's murderous repression of union labor. In practice many people who "hate politics" are, I think, at least partially motivated by not desiring to get into conversations with people who would call them "illiterate" and "imbecile" for, yanno, not supporting ev…

Also keep in mind that the quote is from a different time. Today if something important happens I will find out about it even if I don't want to. An acquaintance will text me, or it will be discussed somewhere (everywhere perhaps) online. You'd have to make a huge effort to be "politically illiterate" in the sense Brecht describes, well beyond not reading the news.

I'm not sure that is true. Even the illiterate can see the problems. But he will not know how they came to be, or how they could be resolved. That the politician promising to fix it all will just make it worse.

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

#272

Post by Shared404 » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

powersnail wrote: post #248

bigbubba wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial television news is very manipulative and the intent of the manipulation is to keep eyeballs glued to the screen to sell ads. They use lots of elaborately animated transitions with bright colors, swooshing sound effects and musical cues to mesmerize viewers, just as slot machines in Vegas use such things to mesmerize gamblers. It's the same sort of graphical bullshit they pad out televized American football…

I was living with a host family when I first saw American TV. I just couldn't tell when the actual show is on. The shows, the news, the ads, and whatever else there was, they all had the same "air". The same kind of music, the same kind of cadence, the same kind of tone, the same kind of fake laugh. TV is pretty shit everywhere; but I can't understand it in US. Confusingly, some of the greatest TV shows are US shows.…

American here, and I have to agree.

I think it has to do with the fact that the only people left watching TV (As in cable), mostly just want noise and bright colors, while people watching TV (As in shows) have moved on to Netflix/Prime/Piracy.

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

#273

Post by tracer4201 » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #259

mhneu wrote: post #244

The author, Arthur Brooks, is the past president of a Republican thinktank, AEI. Republicans have a strong incentive to encourage citizens to ignore the political news, because their policies are deeply unpopular. Republicans rely on a non-engaged citizenry for votes. Brooks is one of the Republican elites who shapes Republican political strategy. He has a deep conflict of interest when he tells you to stop reading a…

> Republicans have a strong incentive to encourage citizens to ignore the political news, because their policies are deeply unpopular. Republicans rely on a non-engaged citizenry for votes. Conservatives outnumber liberals in every age bracket above 30, among both men and women, in every income bracket, among every education class except folks with post-graduate degrees, in every region, and among both non-Hispanic w…

I don’t classify myself as liberal, although I voted for Democrats in the ballot I dropped off today — for everything except for my state’s treasurer and secretary.

My point is that conservatives or liberals don’t necessarily outnumber one or the other in the way you’ve generalized across all these dimensions. If that were the case, conservatives wouldn’t need to rely on the electoral college to win Presidential elections.

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

#274

Post by im3w1l » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #212

caseysoftware wrote: post #148

As I've noted here a few times: Just over 10 years ago, I conducted an experiment. I watched an hour of CNN every night but it was never that night's coverage. It was from exactly two weeks ago. It was amazing how much "breaking news!" was irrelevant or just outright wrong, how many large trend predictions were wrong, and how many "[person] will do X" were wrong. While the predictions could have been portrayed as opi…

Thank you for sharing this great experiment! I'd love a news source that gives me relevant information at lower frequency and, water reading your description, with some delay. Maybe every two weeks and the content covers two weeks with a two week delay. So the oldest news would be over month old when I get it. Years ago someone on the a16z podcast claimed that more frequent news is more negative in its content than l…

For better and worse, a low frequency publication will have the benefit of hindsight, which can lead to deeper thought but also a big bias in coverage. There is a tendency to create grand unified theories of the past, and pretend contrary stuff didn't exist.

Reading a higher frequency publication with a delay will reveal how much ambiguity there really was.

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

#275

Post by Agentlien » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

powersnail wrote: post #248

bigbubba wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial television news is very manipulative and the intent of the manipulation is to keep eyeballs glued to the screen to sell ads. They use lots of elaborately animated transitions with bright colors, swooshing sound effects and musical cues to mesmerize viewers, just as slot machines in Vegas use such things to mesmerize gamblers. It's the same sort of graphical bullshit they pad out televized American football…

I was living with a host family when I first saw American TV. I just couldn't tell when the actual show is on. The shows, the news, the ads, and whatever else there was, they all had the same "air". The same kind of music, the same kind of cadence, the same kind of tone, the same kind of fake laugh. TV is pretty shit everywhere; but I can't understand it in US. Confusingly, some of the greatest TV shows are US shows.…

I had a similar experience. I was a tourist in New York for a week and watched a bit of TV. It was like an exaggerated parody of itself. It felt positively dystopian.

Nowadays I can't even watch swedish TV. I can't stand the ads.

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

#276

Post by nharada » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:46 AM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #247

caseysoftware wrote: post #148

As I've noted here a few times: Just over 10 years ago, I conducted an experiment. I watched an hour of CNN every night but it was never that night's coverage. It was from exactly two weeks ago. It was amazing how much "breaking news!" was irrelevant or just outright wrong, how many large trend predictions were wrong, and how many "[person] will do X" were wrong. While the predictions could have been portrayed as opi…

I stopped religiously reading news after I stumbled upon Aaron Swartz's blog post on the topic [0] way back when! I'd say I have been insulated from the depressiveness of it all ever since but also that I've lost the ability to meaningfully participate or contribute to socio/economical/political discussions that seem to dominate any gathering of modest size [1]. [0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews [1] This…

I agree news can be mentally harmful but I actually think I disagree with Aaron's position here. The way he writes makes it sound like your citizenship and influence on policy and politics starts and ends every four years (or two) when you vote for new politicians.

Personally I believe this should be the bare minimum of democratic involvement. Voting is important, but you can do more than just that if you do decide you care about something -- contact representatives, attend local hearings or meetings, start petitions, etc.

This view of news consumption (i.e. don't bother) works when you only engage with your government via the ballot.

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

#277

Post by a_imho » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

Too much is bad by definition. How much is too much according to the author? tldr;

The solution is to ration your consumption of politics, and set proper boundaries around where you talk about it. I recommend limiting the consumption of all news—not just politics—to 30 minutes a day

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

#278

Post by sixstringtheory » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 6:17 AM UTC

I discovered The Congressional Digest at my public library and thoroughly enjoy it. It’s a monthly publication that picks a topical issue and presents pro and con arguments from various publications and officials. https://congressionaldigest.com/

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

#279

Post by sergeykish » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

massysett wrote: post #226

vinbreau wrote: post #128

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 mad…

Perhaps it was true that he was uninformed about the candidates, but that's not a conclusion you can draw solely because he did not consume any news. There are many ways one can become informed about candidates: visit their websites, read Wikipedia articles, see who endorses them, etc. Some news sources, even "mainstream" ones, are so hopelessly biased that I think they're less informative than consuming candidate pr…

Such person would say that. Some people believe and response with offence if they can't support their believes, flat earth etc.

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

#280

Post by Accacin » Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 6:32 AM UTC

I like many others also decided to effectively dodge the news as much as possible. For the last three years, I subscribed to the British magazine called 'Private Eye' which comes out fortnightly which keeps me up to date, but I see no reason for me to know what's happening at a higher frequency than that.