Live data from Hacker News

Giving up reading news will make us happier

theguardian.com

21–30 of 203 posts

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#21

Haven't watched the news in at least 5 years. Actually I haven't watched TV in the last 5 years even. So I don't have ads bombarding me, or fear and propaganda coming in every day. Highly recommended. You have one life. Make sure it counts as a happy one.

How do you stay up to day?

Ideally Id like a weekly review or something where I can spend 30min.

I recongnise it would be beneficial to give up news, but I need to know a bit about whats going on to be social.

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#22
post #11
post #7

Original full essay in German: http://www.dobelli.com/de/essays/news-diat-full/

And in English: http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/ I read this years ago and stopped reading and watching news. Never missed a thing. Important things you will hear one way or another and the rest is just noise. Loud distracting noise.

Did you notice the evil word in the URL of this website before you posted your comment?

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#23
post #17

Haven't watched the news in at least 5 years. Actually I haven't watched TV in the last 5 years even. So I don't have ads bombarding me, or fear and propaganda coming in every day. Highly recommended. You have one life. Make sure it counts as a happy one.

Ditto. I was also surprised how much happier I was when I deleted all the news apps off my phone. I realized that there's really no good reason for most people to get real-time news alerts except to feed an addiction.

I'm confused. How are y'all saying these things on a site called... Hacker.. news?

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#24

Haven't watched the news in at least 5 years. Actually I haven't watched TV in the last 5 years even. So I don't have ads bombarding me, or fear and propaganda coming in every day. Highly recommended. You have one life. Make sure it counts as a happy one.

I never bought a TV when I moved to my own appartment many years ago. Now when I visit people having their TV on in the background it feels like overly loud. Am I getting more sensitive to noise too? It feels like information overflow and the only thing I can do is give up and just disappear into the TV. I never regret not buying that TV 25+ years ago. Now we do have one but it's only used for selected programs a couple of times per week or the odd movie or game. When ads show up, sound is off and we do the dishes or whatever.

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#25
post #19
post #2

“Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a subtle thing. One must know how to eat, yet just think – most people don’t know how to eat at all. One must not only know what to eat, but when and how.’ (Philip Philipovich waved his fork meaningfully.) ‘And what to say while you’re eating. Yes, my dear sir. If you care about your digestion, my advice is – don’t talk about bolshevism or medicine at table. And, God forbid – never read So…

Love this, but since the book has an anti-Soviet sentiment, I don't think we could generalize this quote. In USSR you would read only what you should and you didn't really have a choice. Freedom of press was something impossible to imagine. I cannot say that everything what we read, or choose to read today is worth reading but there is a good press, which is at times difficult to find, but you will never get to it if…

The irony is that at the limits of capitalism you find the same thing as soviet communism. Worthless news.

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#26
Right and when the secret police come to your door you will be surprised. Wait, you say, when did we get taken over by a dictator? What happened to our democracy? Why is my internet suddenly riddled with NO everywhere? How come my job vanished? Why are my children suddenly forced to eat dirt? Why do I live in a crime infested neighborhood that used to be safe? Why did evil people destroy my environment? Oh yeah, I didn't pay attention.

It's not News you should be looking for, but information, and that's the real problem. If you ignore what is going on in the world because you don't want o hear anything hard you may be blissful, but you are just not involved, and all of us will suffer because you did not care to participate. If finding your information in "News" which is determined to give you false information is bad, ignoring what is going on in life is worse, because the only people who will change things are the very people you don't want doing it.

I remember voting in a bond election in a city of 500,000. Only a few hundred voted. We spent $50M of the people's money because they didn't care. Ignoring News is fine, ignoring what is going on is not.

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#27

Haven't watched the news in at least 5 years. Actually I haven't watched TV in the last 5 years even. So I don't have ads bombarding me, or fear and propaganda coming in every day. Highly recommended. You have one life. Make sure it counts as a happy one.

How do you stay up to day? Ideally Id like a weekly review or something where I can spend 30min. I recongnise it would be beneficial to give up news, but I need to know a bit about whats going on to be social.

You could check out Wikipedia's "Current events" page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#28
post #19
post #2

“Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a subtle thing. One must know how to eat, yet just think – most people don’t know how to eat at all. One must not only know what to eat, but when and how.’ (Philip Philipovich waved his fork meaningfully.) ‘And what to say while you’re eating. Yes, my dear sir. If you care about your digestion, my advice is – don’t talk about bolshevism or medicine at table. And, God forbid – never read So…

Love this, but since the book has an anti-Soviet sentiment, I don't think we could generalize this quote. In USSR you would read only what you should and you didn't really have a choice. Freedom of press was something impossible to imagine. I cannot say that everything what we read, or choose to read today is worth reading but there is a good press, which is at times difficult to find, but you will never get to it if…

The major US news outlets deteriorated to the point of being close to USSR level of bias and propaganda.

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#29

Right and when the secret police come to your door you will be surprised. Wait, you say, when did we get taken over by a dictator? What happened to our democracy? Why is my internet suddenly riddled with NO everywhere? How come my job vanished? Why are my children suddenly forced to eat dirt? Why do I live in a crime infested neighborhood that used to be safe? Why did evil people destroy my environment? Oh yeah, I di…

Hence the penultimate paragraph, no?

"Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too."

Re: Giving up reading news will make us happier

#30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you stay up to day? Ideally Id like a weekly review or something where I can spend 30min. I recongnise it would be beneficial to give up news, but I need to know a bit about whats going on to be social.

You could check out Wikipedia's "Current events" page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

I didn't know about that page. That looks quite like I want. Thank you.
Post reply on HN