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

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

#201

Post by dmingod666 »

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 like to imagine, that if "oh my god the world is ending and its because gasp donald trump" had a physical manifestation, it would be CNN.

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

#202

Post by eutropia »

ggggtez wrote: post #16
eutropia wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very interested in policy, but I do not watch the news. Why? Because it contains no actionable information that changes my decisions: I'm still going to vote in every election, I'm still going to research the candidates when the time comes, I'm still going to volunteer at the polls... The news is trivia, generally speaking. When I have a more active life in politics I'll take the Chomskian approach to news, but…

> says person commenting on a news aggregation site This story didn't contain anything actionable that changes your decisions either, and yet you still read it and spent the time to comment. I don't see a substantive difference between reading HN and reading following political news. Nearly everything on this site (not even just this piece) will not affect your ability to accomplish your goals in anyway. It's a distr…

I didn't read the story.

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

#203

Post by ceejayoz »

ImaCake wrote: post #181

If you have a decent income you should consider getting your news from magazines and history books. I subscribe to Australian Geographic which covers issues I actually care about. Another good source for global news is Delayed Gratification [0]. Aside from the coronavirus pandemic, if you live in a stable developed country (not the USA) there is pretty much no piece of news you can't wait a while to become informed a…

Australian Geographic is a truly wonderful magazine. I wish it were easier to obtain in the States.

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

#205

Post by dmingod666 »

gridlockd wrote: post #143
bazeblackwood wrote: post #66

> They found that those watching the most partisan television news sources—on both the left and the right—were often less knowledgeable about world events than those who consumed no news at all. This is some very fancy footwork to leave out some key information. The study found that those watching only Fox News and MSNBC answered worse than people who watch no news programs at all. As far as I can tell, this latter g…

> MSNBC at least seems to be informing their viewers on domestic issues better than that baseline. The difference is only about 5% to the "no news" crowd. Also, people that are better-educated tend to lean liberal and therefore might prefer to consume liberal outlets, but that doesn't mean liberal outlets are better at informing people. Looking at the frontpage of MSNBC, it's almost exclusively political opinion piec…

100% of Americans believe, that 50% of the American population is filled with morons, the rest of them are either average or intelligent. To find out, if the person is intelligent or not, all you have to do, is check is if they support the same party that I support.

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

#206

Post by dnhz »

hef19898 wrote: post #168
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…

It always surprises me to what degree US cable news, as opposed to print, seems to treat politics like entertainment and sports coverage. At least from an outsider's perspective. Maybe no surprise a reality TV star became President.

Written news and commentary (mainly online) is not that different. When Trump caught covid, there were endless articles speculating about how severe his illness was or whether a second week with the virus would bring about more severe symptoms. Just a bunch of suppositions and hypotheticals to get you to click and spend a few minutes reading.

The main loss from all this is not wasted time but that serious issues receive less discussion in favor of what's happening right now and what it could possibly mean.

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

#207

Post by jariel »

runawaybottle wrote: post #175
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 wouldn’t even put it in the pedestal of psychological manipulation. It’s gossip, the same as teen magazines and tabloids. They just dress it up with authority. Standard low minded stuff. I tune in for some gossip from time to time, no harm no foul. But jesus, do it all the time and you might as well become this: https://youtu.be/XUT8ec24anM

It's manipulative both in the narrative sense (they're preaching to the choir) but also in a sense the commenter made - 'like they do in Vegas'.

The big focus on the 'head only' now on CNN, because that's more engaging - personalities who are almost always 7.5/10 - i.e. nice to look at but not ultra-attractive, the ability to appear 'just credible enough in tone and disposition and yet also empathetic' - that posture is important. And then background, the overlays - it's designed like the environment in Vegas.

Go to CNN.com right now and let the ad for Cuomo's show run - listen to the words he is using, listen to the music, the specific text that they overlay. They are communicating "It's panic time in America, is your heart racing? Because this is so important, and we have the 'Truth' for you here, tune in at 8pm".

These are all generally intelligent, well intentioned people, but the ultra focus on eyeballs and attention really hurts credibility.

During an election cycle it gets much worse, it's almost impossible to watch any cable news outlet right now.

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

#208

Post by jariel »

0xmohit wrote: post #99

Much of it isn't "news". It is mostly propaganda. Quoting Garry Kasparov: "The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth."

That's a great quote, but I would characterize what's happening now as 'Narrative Propaganda' in that, there is no authoritative source dictating the terms, but a gaggle of groups fixing the language, narrative, establishing the 'Overton Window' of what is acceptable to talk about - and anyone who has reasonable arguments against said narrative is just suppressed.
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