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Negativity drives online news consumption

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Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#241

Post by dhab »

bpm140 wrote: 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 think it's a bit extreme. I have developed some heurisitics, which so far are (living in Australia):

* news.com.au = clickbait

* government funded ones = abc, sbs are free and ok

* 9 news, 7 news = negative

* google news = aggregator of mostly negative news

* AFR, Sydney Morning Herald, .. few others = ok

My experience with twitter has been the following:

* I look at some content I subscribed for (humor, or tech related)

* Then it feeds suggestions which spiral downwards into negativity (sometimes extreme - like videos of people getting shot). Soon, I resent twitter and the platform.

Experience with youtube: meh, but not as bad as Twitter as described above

Experience with Quora: better and interesting

Facebook: I avoid

TikTok (my wife's): interesting content - but happy to view via my wife's mobile, since it naturally limits my consumption

Netflix: good and bad, but ok

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#242

Post by [deleted] »

wil421 wrote: post #192
bpm140 wrote: 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 like to watch my favorite local news station. They have a lot of minor stories that never make the National media. Although there are local issues like murders, thefts, and controversial topics. It’s still a huge downgrade from the rage inducing large outlets.

[deleted]

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#243

Post by sangnoir »

wil421 wrote: post #192
bpm140 wrote: 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 like to watch my favorite local news station. They have a lot of minor stories that never make the National media. Although there are local issues like murders, thefts, and controversial topics. It’s still a huge downgrade from the rage inducing large outlets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE

edit: To add more color: "local news" is increasingly not local anymore. The video I linked to is a collection of "local" stations that are owned by Sinclair reading from the same script rather literally.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#244

Post by haimez »

nomilk wrote: post #237
Dalewyn wrote: post #188

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.

I feel like we're failing to accurately name 'news'. The vast majority of what is offered as 'news' isn't news at all, it's gossip, schadenfreude, arbitrary drama, and frivolous feel-good stories. 'News' has a ring of plausible importance. I wish we had a more accurate name reflecting its mostly unimportant, worthless, and destructive nature.

News is just what’s “New”. It’s name is already prefectly descriptive :)

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#245

Post by t12hrow »

hot_gril wrote: post #213
t12hrow wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perhaps government-funded I suggest the opposite. I'd like a proof that there is no government involvement. Believe it or not, I think the closest to this is ideal is 4chan /pol/. It's not backed by any major corporation (unlike HN which is backed by Y Combinator), it's not partly owned by Tencent/China (unlike Reddit), and so on. There's no algorithm, there's no karma, there's no blue badge, it barely scrapes by u…

4chan only (sorta) works at a small scale, which it is. It's a niche. "No normies!"

I don't know if I consider it small scale, it has around 45M views a month according to similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/4chan.org/#overview.

Of course, it's still small scale in relation to behemoths like Twitter, FB, Insta, TikTok.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#246

Post by ImaCake »

dhab wrote: post #241
bpm140 wrote: 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 think it's a bit extreme. I have developed some heurisitics, which so far are (living in Australia): * news.com.au = clickbait * government funded ones = abc, sbs are free and ok * 9 news, 7 news = negative * google news = aggregator of mostly negative news * AFR, Sydney Morning Herald, .. few others = ok My experience with twitter has been the following: * I look at some content I subscribed for (humor, or tech re…

I would say both ABC and SMH often lead with clickbait as well. I sometimes check the headlines and it is almost always a waste of time and emotional energy.

The top article on abc at the moment is clickbaity and niche, although, I give credit to it actually being of relevance to some people.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-18/leaky-buildings-poor-...

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#247

Post by robswc »

pdimitar wrote: post #220
siva7 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Over the course of the last 3 years I found myself clicking on less and less HN stories. This place definitely feels like it lost the inventor spirit and the clever "how to" articles. A lot of stuff is either political or has very close political outcomes, and the rest is blind hype (ChatGPT won't revolutionize almost anything, and I'll stand by my words, bookmark this comment and show it to me in 5 years, I dare you…

>ChatGPT won't revolutionize almost anything, and I'll stand by my words, bookmark this comment and show it to me in 5 years, I dare you

1. I'll actually take you up on this, because I'm interested to re-visit the discourse around launch, 5 years from now :)

2. I do agree it's overhyped to a degree. I think it will revolutionize _some_ things but it could turn out like VR. I do use it every day and I don't see a reason not to... I guess we'll see what the future holds!

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#248

Post by nomilk »

dhab wrote: post #241
bpm140 wrote: 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 think it's a bit extreme. I have developed some heurisitics, which so far are (living in Australia): * news.com.au = clickbait * government funded ones = abc, sbs are free and ok * 9 news, 7 news = negative * google news = aggregator of mostly negative news * AFR, Sydney Morning Herald, .. few others = ok My experience with twitter has been the following: * I look at some content I subscribed for (humor, or tech re…

I would swap a lot of these out for primary sources. 'News' sites are just middle-men for a 9:1 blend of unimportant trash and important information. Occasionally they can alert you of something important you need to know about, but once I learn of such topics, I examine primary source(s) and context; very rarely do I get info from the 'news' article itself; it's usually designed to titillate or outrage.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#249

Post by hot_gril »

t12hrow wrote: post #245
hot_gril wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan only (sorta) works at a small scale, which it is. It's a niche. "No normies!"

I don't know if I consider it small scale, it has around 45M views a month according to similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/4chan.org/#overview . Of course, it's still small scale in relation to behemoths like Twitter, FB, Insta, TikTok.

Some qualification: It's small enough that each board has a global chrono view of posts, same with replies on posts. You can reply back and forth and still understand what's going on despite the other noise.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#250

Post by zamadatix »

zabzonk wrote: post #230

wow, strange but revealing comments here on the ideas of what constitutes news in the usa - i read the guardian (uk) every day, and i simply don't recognise many of these issues.

Checking out The Guardian's current UK page headlines: public sector strikes, controversy around media involved in a Rwanda visit, putin war crimes arrest warrant, actor dies, actor has blood cancer, labour party racism claims, SNP head of communications resigns due to failures, female footballers criticise another article, london bridge terrorist attack memorial, supermarkets fined after death of employee, something about the conservatives party upset someone wasn't prosecuted.

Followed by a row for the Ukraine invasion followed by a spotlight section containing: "the poison umbrella" on cold war killings, some babble about hugh grant and complaining about the Oscars, a somewhat not negative story about childcare funding?

~20 completely negative and/or garbage babbling stories on the page before one somewhat decent one sounds exactly the same to me.

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