Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

raptitude.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 741 posts

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#191

Post by pengaru »

mmaunder wrote: post #114
pengaru wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, just scan news.google.com periodically, never watch anything unintentionally [0]. The incessant talking heads are such obvious brainwashers, whenever I get tricked into watching some in a clip or at a bar/taqueria it's utterly offensive and patronizing manipulative trash. I can't imagine how broken people are who constantly consume the stuff. [0] youtube-dl is a godsend for maintaining this without totally…

Google News is filled with spam and cheap attention grabbing garbage these days IMO. It’s also highly targeted leading to a bubble. But I agree with both of you otherwise!

I only view the main page with js disabled, but agree the quality has diminished since its earlier years. Castrating its use of js still retains visibility into the major headlines via the main page at least.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#192

Post by andi999 »

ROTMetro wrote: post #143
yojo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid. What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, w…

I used to find the Economist great, but with the corrosiveness of everything this last bit, they seem to sneak agenda into articles now days in a way I feel like this whole post is trying to move away from. Maybe as a lost Libertarian who can't stand the control everyone's lives progressives I feel that has crept quite a bit into the Economist. It's funny it bothers me as I have reached a point where I feel Libertari…

Did you try the financial times? I sometimes find them shockingly unbiased.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#194

Post by ROTMetro »

deltaonefour wrote: post #131
cpach wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah enormous difference. It is indeed a good idea to avoid TV news. My suggestion: Go to a news stand instead and grab a copy of The Economist. One who does that will learn much about the world. About countries one rarely hear about in other media outlets. About advances in science and technology. In my opinion, time spent reading The Economist is not wasted. Well that’s my 2¢ anyway ¯\＿(ツ)＿/¯

My suggestion is don't even bother with the economist. It's news in more pretentious and intelligent packaging. It's honestly better than some other sources for sure, but that isn't the point. The point isn't to find good sources of news. I think the point is that most news, no matter how good it is, is largely pointless. I'll pick up the economist if something in it interests me. Otherwise I largely ignore all news.

And it definitely is biased. It sadly very much "informs" you towards having the opinion it wants to promote which is what I think we are discussing getting away from.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#195

Post by BeetleB »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #24

So much to unpack here. For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion. News is also the gateway for deeper information. If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invalua…

> For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others.

Depends on the crowd. In my experience, that's true with only 10% of the people I know. Most of them are more interested in having an opinion than understanding what is going.

When I expand the circle to the population in general, it probably drops to about 2% of the population.

> If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invaluable context.

As a former news junkie, I agree - with the caveat that to get to what I call the minimum threshold of deep understanding will take many, many hours.[1] You have to seek out many different interpretations, sources, etc. It's a very active thing. If you spend merely an hour a day on the news, you won't get there (or perhaps you'll only get "there" for a topic or two).

At that point, you start doing a cost-benefit analysis, as I had to. And then you realize that in the universe of things you could be doing, there are plenty of things that give you a better cost/benefit ratio.

> In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story

Strong disagree. For many (most?) issues, if you can itemize only two sides to the story, you have a very narrow picture of what is going on.

[1] No, definitely just reading the Economist will not do. The quest for reducing news sources to just 1-2 quality sources is a flawed one, and you'll always have a skewed view of the world that way.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#196

Post by dilippkumar »

> A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in mood.

Anecdotal data point here, but I experienced more than just an improvement in mood. I had a completely unexpected blossoming of immense amounts of creativity.

About three weeks into my total news cut off, I started to feel sober in a way that is similar to discovering sobriety during December holiday weeks with family after non stop drinking for months in College.

Unlike the author in the linked article, I did a complete cut off from all "news-like" sources: TV news, Youtube channels, social media, reddit, podcasts that talk about current events, blogs and newsletters that discuss news - all of it.

When conversations started to become awkward (about 6 months after being completely cut off and I could no longer infer/derive the common assumptions underlying a conversation in a group), I subscribed to The Economist, directed their Espresso newsletter to Feedbin and started reading that about every other day. I found that a handful of bullet points about what's going on in the world per week is sufficient for me to keep up with any conversation I find myself in.

If there are any other news abstainers here, I'd love to hear your life hacks and tricks that you use to navigate the world.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#197

Post by JKCalhoun »

macksd wrote: post #4

I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…

We dropped cable when our first daughter was born. No regrets at all.

It was only when in the hotel lobby having breakfast did we see the CNN/FOX alarmist news coverage blaring about a world spiraling out of control.

I thought, why is it always when we're on vacation that the world begins to teeter on the brink of destruction?

And then I remembered what cable news was like before we cut the cord.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#198

Post by legulere »

brightball wrote: post #158
macksd wrote: post #4

I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…

Even the streaming stuff will include it subtly though. I was watching a show on Netflix with my wife the other day, Sweet Magnolia’s and it seemed about as controversial as a Hallmark channel show. But these days I notice whenever specific catch phrases or expressions are getting used across multiple news outlets and it puts me a little bit on guard if a suddenly notice a phrase being used excessively…as if the poin…

That discussion about the truth is already older and is just arriving in mainstream media. I first stumbled upon it at the chaos communication congress in 2007: https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events...

It’s easy to see how such an idea can become mainstream when our society is losing a common agreed upon basic understanding.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#199

Post by bduerst »

macksd wrote: post #4

I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…

Scanning news aggregators like Apple and Google News also shines a light on the bias in multiple news sources, just from the headlines.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#200

Post by BeetleB »

ziggus wrote: post #101
ppeetteerr wrote: post #24

So much to unpack here. For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion. News is also the gateway for deeper information. If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invalua…

Hard disagree. Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing (as it is designed to be) just to have something to chat about or become more well-informed about issues that in large part have no bearing on me. I pay attention to issues that are important to me at scopes that matter - state and municipal. Everything else is noise.

> Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing

Let's not project. I was a news junkie for years, and the news itself was not stress inducing.

Post reply on HN