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News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

m.guardiannews.com

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Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#11

Post by arikrak »

Most 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.)

Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#13

Post by OGinparadise »

arikrak wrote: post #11

Most 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.)

Most 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. At least, but then you also need to know what's happening and not every second can be monetized, we'd become robots. I wish I could limit it to 15 minutes in the morning (Earthquake in ...; shooting ...; health care law ...; ....), 15 midday; 15 at night and then just chill looking at special interest sites like tech, archeology, history etc.

Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#16

Post by OGinparadise »

unimpressive wrote: post #10
richforrester wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

news.ycombinator.com Could, not, resist.

If you think that HN is neutral, need to know, or even concise, you're crazy. Though on the subject of neutrality, humans aren't neutral, so expecting their publications to be is itself insane.

Not neutral at all. I believe that certain companies have their employees come here to flag or to ^ certain stories. Maybe not organized, but it happens regardless. I have noticed stories go from being on top to page 3 within minutes, simply because it was bad PR for a certain online monopoly.

Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#17

Post by richforrester »

unimpressive wrote: post #10
richforrester wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

news.ycombinator.com Could, not, resist.

If you think that HN is neutral, need to know, or even concise, you're crazy. Though on the subject of neutrality, humans aren't neutral, so expecting their publications to be is itself insane.

Cheers. Crazy, or maybe just misinformed. Thanks for enlightening me. (no sarcasm)

Guess I'll think twice before posting something positive about HN from now on.

Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#18

Post by tathagatadg »

I used to read HN all day and felt good, elevated, enlightened ... pretty soon I was trying to learn every new language, trying every new framework, trying a new todo regime - needless to say I was getting no where. Soon I was very unhappy ... everybody was doing something cool other than me! Every Show HN: makes me feel I'm wasting my life in school ... and should dropout and start building what I've started sometime back ...

But then someone told me, "Believe what you are doing is cool, inundating yourself with what others are doing won't get you anywhere other than giving you the false sense of wisdom!"

Now I spend a lot less time on HN. And since it has the best content of the net .. I don't need to look anywhere else.

Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#19

Post by Paul_D_Santana »

anonozc wrote: post #3

That sounds like what Tim Ferriss said in 4 hour workweek

Yes! Definitely! It is such an incredibly excellent book. I listened to the Audible version twice in one month (26 hours in total). I think everyone should check it out, at least for the alternate viewpoints on doing things. I actually wrote about this on my own site (link in my profile).

On topic, I absolutely love the part in the book that says "Replace reading the newspaper over breakfast or dinner with activities like speaking with your spouse, playing with your children, etc."

It's funny but this book has made me better at relationships, and even life. I wholeheartedly believe in the notion of not reading the news. It makes you more present, and more engaged with your own life.

Re: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

#20

Post by vy8vWJlco »

mehrzad wrote: post #4

I 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.
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