See also "I Hate the News" by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
See also Thoreau.
Henry David Thoreau: All news is gossip
http://wearethebest.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/henry-david-
thoreau-all-news-is-gossip/
News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
71–80 of 245 posts
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#72Most of those reasons seem exaggerated, except one: News wastes time. It's just to easy and effortless to click on news stories and bam - there goes 45 minutes of time. Does anyone know a good program that blocks you from e.g. wasting more than 25 minutes reading news each day? Browser tools are too easy to bypass to be effective. (Editing the hosts file works, but then you can't visit those sites at all.)
Editing the hosts file works, but then you can't visit those sites at all. Consider doing that for a week (or however long) and see if your habit changes. I've found that sense of effortlessness declines after such a break.
One of my "new year resolution" this year was to block news sites on my /etc/hosts.
Almost 5 months in and I'm not going back. The next step is blocking reddit.
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#73"Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it - allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business. The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you." I agree, yet I find my main use for news is to make me feel connected with other humans... If I cut myself off from it, I…
You can start by not having meals alone. It may sound silly, but having meals in a group is a great way to form stronger bonds.
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#74I remember reading (can't recall the source right now) that a study conducted over multiple newspapers over a period of time revealed that 95% of news carry a negative tone.
Add this to the fact that most news channels focus on trivia more than important issues and I have a perfect reason to not dive into news.
I still sneak a peek at any interesting story that shows up on my twitter stream though.
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#75I would agree to the degree that "News" refers to shallow news reporting. News on TV? Undoubtedly detrimental. Long form journalism? Lots of merit. Sensational coverage of a kidnapping? Waste of your time. Coverage of the political process? Could lead you to a revelation about certain political entities. Basically, I would not recommend completely dismissing all forms of news. News consumption can lead you to change…
Exactly. This article doesn't make much sense unless you read it carefully enough to understand that "news" has a very specific and limited definition in this context.
Indeed, when it described the damage done by news, it notes an inability to grasp the kinds of deep, large, and truly world-changing stories that are happening all around us, and which the shallow, fragmented, and sensationalistic sugar hits of "news" can never convey.
Generally, following these larger, deeper stories (to say nothing of participating in them) requires both a measure of focused interest, and pre-existing knowledge. A lot of the news on HN fits into this category. This is very different from the parade of horribles that is found on FOX News, CNN, in USAToday, etc.
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#76This article irks me. Although most "news" has regressed into banal link bait just plain yellow journalism, and the notion of the "news organization" has undergone an inexorable transition towards the likes of Buzzfeed the the Huffington Post, it's absurd to assert that all news is worthless. First, his point that no news can be of value to one's personal situation or decision-making is false. News has impacted my li…
I think the best counter to the faff in this article is simply: Talk to someone who watches the news. Then talk to someone who doesn't. Even if nothing else, watching the news is at least indicative of an interest in the world beyond arms'-length.
Besides, there's a world of difference between "read the news being aware that the news-maker has an agenda" and "ignore the news entirely".
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#77so, you said, I should give up Hacker News?
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#78"I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie" is not the same as "stop consuming the news altogether, it's bad for you". It's a horribly fallacious argument.
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#79I hope I'm not the only one seeing the irony of this post.
I'm amazed to see an article trying to inform me that, indeed, ignorance is bliss. While I think people should watch their garbage intake, I'd certainly not encourage tuning out world events any more than I'd encourage running with both earbuds in. In either case one is likely to be taken off guard.
That's not what it says at all. What it says is that there are really big, deep, important, and world-changing stories happening all around us, but you won't get them from what passes for news. What you will get is a fragmentary sugar-high that actually damages your ability to grasp more meaningful accounts of the world. That is to say, the kind of news this story refers to (and which the Guardian sees itself as being above) will make you ignorant. Moreover, that ignorance is characterizes by anxiety and aggression. In other words, the opposite of bliss.
Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier
#80I've come to a similar conclusion. Because news emphasizes the dramatic over the contextual, they're always providing me poor information in an even poorer context. That's just the way the business works. I've done something weird, though: I switched to plaintext commentary. So each day I scan my personal news site, http://newspaper23.com . It only does commentary. I find that by scanning the titles I can see what ne…
This is amazing. Just glancing through that newspaper23.com site for a few seconds, I am amazed at how many headlines are written to be panic-inducing or inflammatory, rather than simply calm reporting. That was more an eyeopener to me about the status of today's news than anything else.