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

theatlantic.com

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

#281

Post by nicbou »

ignoramous wrote: post #247
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 stopped religiously reading news after I stumbled upon Aaron Swartz's blog post on the topic [0] way back when! I'd say I have been insulated from the depressiveness of it all ever since but also that I've lost the ability to meaningfully participate or contribute to socio/economical/political discussions that seem to dominate any gathering of modest size [1]. [0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews [1] This…

Sometimes I wonder if it's such a terrible thing to be politically illiterate. After seeing how everyone was misled into invading, plundering and destroying Iraq, I don't know if it's really possible to trust the reality we are presented. We only know once the dust settles.

You could also be politically literate, but completely blind or apathetic to the realities of other people.

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

#282

Post by bakuninsbart »

robk wrote: post #93
loughnane wrote: post #90

The economist is great for this. Views aside, getting a single bolus of well-considered, well-written news once a week is wonderful. You “miss out” on the “did you hear what X said” water cooler talk, but the gains in understanding and attention are significant

In the past five or size years the Economist has sadly become quite partisan and unreadable..in their trump derangement they've lost a lot of the even keel view they'd previously had over the prior decades I'd been a reader. Sadly I still read but effectively skip all politics as the new Eric Schmidt led board have certainly co-opted the formerly drier view the editors formerly would have taken in exchange for a more…

Will you also stop reading Nature, Scientific American, and The New England Journal of Medicine? The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of scientists, academics and journalists is horrified at the anti-intellectualism, brutality and outright lack of decency demonstrated by the american administration.

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

#283

Post by isoprophlex »

ignoramous wrote: post #247
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 stopped religiously reading news after I stumbled upon Aaron Swartz's blog post on the topic [0] way back when! I'd say I have been insulated from the depressiveness of it all ever since but also that I've lost the ability to meaningfully participate or contribute to socio/economical/political discussions that seem to dominate any gathering of modest size [1]. [0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews [1] This…

I'd like being politically illiterate, but morally and ethically educated.

If politics is manufactured outrage and pandering to the lowest common denominator, and ethics is the study of universal moral invariants, those core values that should always apply when making decisions... I'd say screw political engagement.

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

#284

Post by dragonwriter »

isoprophlex wrote: post #283
ignoramous wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped religiously reading news after I stumbled upon Aaron Swartz's blog post on the topic [0] way back when! I'd say I have been insulated from the depressiveness of it all ever since but also that I've lost the ability to meaningfully participate or contribute to socio/economical/political discussions that seem to dominate any gathering of modest size [1]. [0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews [1] This…

I'd like being politically illiterate, but morally and ethically educated. If politics is manufactured outrage and pandering to the lowest common denominator, and ethics is the study of universal moral invariants, those core values that should always apply when making decisions... I'd say screw political engagement.

> I'd like being politically illiterate, but morally and ethically educated.

> If politics is manufactured outrage

But it's not; politics is everything concerning government.

Manufactured outrage is a common tool for manipulating the politically illiterate.

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

#285

Post by yazaddaruvala »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #240
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #223

This article seems well written but not critically examined. Based on the data presented, the article seems to conflate “correlation as causation”. Specifically, there is no mention of eliminating selection bias. Typically if people are currently fortunate and aren’t in need of social safety nets, these people are both more likely to be happier and, given the lower risk, they can afford to be politically agnostic. Me…

Empirically, the dynamic of "can afford to be politically agnostic" doesn't seem to happen. Data I've seen ( https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/academics/colleges/hclas/cld/cld... is the clearest presentation I can find off-hand) indicates that complete political disengagement - never discussing or following politics - is much more common in lower income brackets. I'd argue that this is what we should expect from an abstrac…

Again, this is falling into the trap of incomplete statistics.

“Given people discuss politics not at all, 40% make less than 30k per year.”

But we aren’t told how many people fall into “the given”.

What would be interesting for this discussion,

Given people’s income brackets, how often (the median, ideally also p90 and p99) do they discuss politics per month?

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

#286

Post by hanche »

dragonwriter wrote: post #284
isoprophlex wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like being politically illiterate, but morally and ethically educated. If politics is manufactured outrage and pandering to the lowest common denominator, and ethics is the study of universal moral invariants, those core values that should always apply when making decisions... I'd say screw political engagement.

> I'd like being politically illiterate, but morally and ethically educated. > If politics is manufactured outrage But it's not; politics is everything concerning government. Manufactured outrage is a common tool for manipulating the politically illiterate.

I would state it even more broadly: Politics is everything concerning how society is organised. Of course, government is a big part of that, but it is not the whole. For example, how mutual trust in society is created or eroded is a political question in my mind.

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

#287

Post by lytefm »

im3w1l wrote: post #274
ajmurmann wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing this great experiment! I'd love a news source that gives me relevant information at lower frequency and, water reading your description, with some delay. Maybe every two weeks and the content covers two weeks with a two week delay. So the oldest news would be over month old when I get it. Years ago someone on the a16z podcast claimed that more frequent news is more negative in its content than l…

For better and worse, a low frequency publication will have the benefit of hindsight, which can lead to deeper thought but also a big bias in coverage. There is a tendency to create grand unified theories of the past, and pretend contrary stuff didn't exist. Reading a higher frequency publication with a delay will reveal how much ambiguity there really was.

A popular German speaking author made a similar case years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro... Also published a book about that issue recently. Basically, you'll be much better informed and have better mental health by only reading a monthly publication and books instead of following daily news.

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

#288

Post by TomSwirly »

cynicalkane wrote: post #262
ignoramous wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped religiously reading news after I stumbled upon Aaron Swartz's blog post on the topic [0] way back when! I'd say I have been insulated from the depressiveness of it all ever since but also that I've lost the ability to meaningfully participate or contribute to socio/economical/political discussions that seem to dominate any gathering of modest size [1]. [0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews [1] This…

[1] sounds like a good quote, but keep in mind that the author of that quote was a tacit supporter of Leininsm and Stalinism, and initially supported East Germany's murderous repression of union labor. In practice many people who "hate politics" are, I think, at least partially motivated by not desiring to get into conversations with people who would call them "illiterate" and "imbecile" for, yanno, not supporting ev…

> a tacit supporter of Leininsm and Stalinism

..."tacit" meaning that Brecht never actually said it. An ad hominem argument addresses the person and not their claims....

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

#290

Post by TomSwirly »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #190
watwut wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are those two garbage? I am not American and here local religious conservatives adopted Trump. Reading American radical evangelical writings, they are pro Trump too. Open support of Biden is superrare. And whether the Republicans become more radical is interesting question

It's not "news." Call it whatever you want, but it's definitely not that. No matter what your political stance.

The Atlantic is a _monthly magazine_ with articles about "Literature, political science, foreign affairs, lifestyles".

These articles are political science. For me, a European, they are a valuable analysis of your collapsing country, so I can get out of the way of the pieces as it crumbles down.

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