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Negativity drives online news consumption

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Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#201
post #186

About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on M…

I went the other way, expanding the news I read to include more international stuff. Really makes me see the partisan stuff in the US as silly, so I don't get heated about it, just lazily keep up with what's happening. International propaganda is easier to spot cause I'm not living in it, which helps me identify it more at home. Anything I consider real news is still too far away to really upset me but important enough that I want to do something about it in a cool-headed way.

And if I weren't doing that, I'd go no-news. That's fine too.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#202
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common bit of wisdom I've heard from older folks is to ignore the news. Don't read the newspaper, don't watch TV news, don't listen to radio news, etc.; they all say nothing in them is worth our time. It's among the most useful piece of advice I've ever had.

Very true but does HN count? Would you be happier without your daily influx of GPT news and tech layoffs?

[deleted]

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#203
Two stories:

Biden & Trump Get Into Food Fight at Restaurant?

More and More Americans Deal With Evictions.

Question: Which of these two stories will get more clicks for an advertiser? Click-bait pays the bills for our news. NYT is an obvious example. Their stories? How much home can a million buy in Portland. Which $600,000 apartment would you choose in Brooklyn.

Negativity is certainly a factor in click-bait but lets pin the tail on the donkey: targeted advertising as a business model.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#205

It's always obvious in the Google news aggregation where the top article group is saying one thing and the Faux News headline is spinning the completely opposite direction no matter how tenuous the position is so long as it's owning the libs.

Maybe Google News is just great at serving you articles that aligns with your viewpoint? If people don't find biased articles at least weekly in their favorite newspaper, then I'd argue that they aren't critical enough.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#206
post #186

About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on M…

[dead]

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#209
post #186

About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on M…

I did about the same thing at about the same time. I’ve spent much more time creating - music, software, retro computing. Much happier, but there is one corner of my brain that feels a bit like I had to give up on humanity to get here and that sucks.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in no way an attack on you, but your post shows exactly the problem. You first wrote > With few exceptions, positive stories and then you wrote > a whole section for feel-good features "Positive news" is more or less orthogonal to "feel-good features". When I moved to my current job, I had the option of watching Kansas City news or Topeka news. The KC news stations took the route you're suggesting. Everything…

I've noticed some programming and sources have sort of jammed feel-good pieces in some weird attempt to counter balance things. People dying on Ukraine, banks defaulting, Little Timmy in nowhere USA is taking steps to setup his lemonade stand and donate to the local food shelter to make a difference. Don't get me wrong, I think efforts like Little Timmy's are great and in the scope of their lives is probably signific…

Also there are often "feel good" stories that are really quite negative in disguise. "Little Timmy started a GoFundMe to pay off his school lunch debt, and all his friends donated!" and other dystopian "seems nice but is actually horrifying" content.
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