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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#31

Post by DasCorCor »

parliament32 wrote: post #2

Personally, I fixed the problem by not bothering with "staying informed" at all. I ditched media outside of local news entirely, and just don't engage with things that I can't do anything about. It would boil down to "focus on things you can control." Sure, it's fun to be outraged together with your friends about "X leader in Y country does Z crazy thing" but.. can you do anything about it? Does your opinion matter?…

What am I doing today? Taking care of my son. Trying to have another child. What do I need to plan for tomorrow? How am I going to vaccinate my child next year? How do I get my wife medical care if she has another unviable pregnancy? How small of a life you must lead that you can just not engage.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#32

Post by meheleventyone »

bende511 wrote: post #16
okeuro49 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

you already had Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. what more immiseration could you really be hoping for

The guys a fan of Tommy Robinson (at least from a glance over his post history) so y'know they probably weren't extreme enough.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#33

Post by philk10 »

okeuro49 wrote: post #12
throw0101c wrote: post #3

>> It's been like what, only two weeks? This shit is exhausting already. > It's meant to exhaust you. * https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1886247034664964548 Ezra Klein: > That is the tension at the heart of Trump’s whole strategy: Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is trying to substitute perception for reality. He is hoping that perception then becomes reality. T…

[flagged]

Thatcher was bad enough as was Boris and you want worse than them?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#34

Post by smgit »

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

One thing is read the article, not just the headline. Get the nuance, learn what’s actually happening, see what people are doing to react. You’ll not feel as frozen if you understand that a fluid situation has many directions it can take and it’s not set in stone.

"In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention"

Platforms have realized this long ago, that as info explodes people pay attention to the easiest things to pay attention too not the hardest, so they move resources to designing things like reels and shorts and tweets etc etc. Every earnings call they gloat about how shorter form content is exploding and how thrilled they are about it.

The long form stuff only holds attention of the majority if you keep throwing Novelty on the table every two sentences.

Platforms are basically running an animal domestication program, where people have been rewarded with high rep and status for extremely low cognitive work.

So that entire group that has benefited doesn't see any need for nuance and depth in anything. "Cause look how many likes, clicks, views and followers I have accumulated without it"

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#35

Post by _fat_santa »

I've been an avid news consumer since ~2016 and early on I remember getting very outraged at articles, tweets and other pieces of news I read. Over time I realized that these articles want you to be outraged, and that the outrage is a form of control.

Over time though I picked up on these "outrage triggers" and that's helped me be much more objective about news I'm reading. I'll be reading an article and I can usually pick up the "tricks" writers use to generate outrage. I often find myself reading an article and go "oh look you want me to feel outraged right now".

Nowdays when I try to be informed about a story I will read an NYT report, a CNN report, a Fox News or other right leaning report, and then maybe one from DailyWire of Bannon's War Room. Skimming every article I often see spots where the outlet is trying to outrage their readers. NYT will report something that will outrage the left and as you "go right" on the reports you will start to see outrage directed to the right.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#37

Post by Lendal »

parliament32 wrote: post #2

Personally, I fixed the problem by not bothering with "staying informed" at all. I ditched media outside of local news entirely, and just don't engage with things that I can't do anything about. It would boil down to "focus on things you can control." Sure, it's fun to be outraged together with your friends about "X leader in Y country does Z crazy thing" but.. can you do anything about it? Does your opinion matter?…

If you're a citizen of a democracy and you only focus on you, then when it comes time to vote you'll be voting randomly. Or maybe you don't vote and thereby cede control to your neighbors to make decisions for you over the environment in which you live. Assuming you decide to vote then, and since you don't live in a vacuum, your vote will be based on whatever random stuff leaked through to you during the time you were "focusing on you". Actually it's not random. It's whoever spent the most time and money on the propaganda that influences/buys your vote.

So it's not really that simple is it?

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#38

Post by FredPret »

If you truly need to know breaking news, one of the following is probably true:

- you have a team that will brief you on it

- you will get the news that apply to you from the source

You won’t get either of these from a news website.

As a civilian, you can stay completely up to date with a quick weekly / monthly headline scan.

Re: Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

#39

Post by taylodl »

yostrovs wrote: post #25

What is actually outrageous is that Scientific American publishes articles like this. It's an institution that, like so many, is destroying itself by getting into politics, especially the politics of outrage.

Scientific American started "getting into politics" in the mid 20th century, so your comment is about 70 years late.
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