Reading the news is the new smoking • Hacker News Board

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#31

Post by mschuster91 » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

da-x wrote: post #10

For the majority of people, it seems to me that news are background noise to which they tune in occasionally, but otherwise they are just going about in their lives and it does not affect them much. However, for the few details-oriented analytic people among us, the news are a *mental pit hole*. This is what I saw on myself since 2020. The mind works under an illusion that there is a possibly to synthesize some posit…

> Or a daily digest. I vibe-coded a daemon that sends me the Wikipedia's daily summaries, once a day. It's a one page of 'this is what happened' without interpretation (but with left-leaning bias, because Wikipedia).

Well, the core problem is that conservatism (or rather, what most conservative parties make it out to be) doesn't exactly correspond with reality - particularly where stuff such as climate change is concerned.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#32

Post by joshuaheard » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

I have been a news junkie ever since I switched from reading cereal boxes at breakfast to my dad's newspaper. I totally agree it's addicting. However, I don't know if I would say it's a negative addiction like smoking. I look forward to reading the news and seeing what's going on in the world outside my window. It's a challenge to come up with my own solutions to the world's problems. Now, with social media, I am even more rewarded by making my "solutions" public.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#33

Post by cschmidt » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

It all depends on where you get your news. You need somewhere that puts things into context so you can understand why things are happening. Personally I really like the Economist. The weekly pace of publication also encourages analysis over “Trump puts tariffs on soybeans” headlines. News for smart people.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#34

Post by GavinMcG » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

OutOfHere wrote: post #17

pluralmonad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point is that being "informed" is of negative value. Trying to find a different avenue through which to be informed defeats the purpose. Ask your friends and family how they are doing and you will be much better informed than listening to the ravings of publicists.

It is nonsense, considering that such uninformed people end up voting for a felon in public office.

Information wasn’t what those voters lacked.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#35

Post by LastTrain » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

Yes. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#36

Post by mnls » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

I’ll take it even further: I've stopped reading ANY kind of news. Yep, tech news too. And I've realized that I'm not missing anything important or anything that some colleague or friend won't tell me if it’s THAT important indeed. Occasionally I skim read HN and that’s it.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#37

Post by appplication » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #27

This feels dangerous. Being obsessed with reading the news, watching endless cable news, getting steams of push notifications… yeah, unhealthy. But completely ignorance of what’s going on in the world is not something to be lauded. It’s how we’ve ended up in the situation we find ourselves in today, a fact free environment where politicians get away with murder (sometimes literally!) because so many people aren’t pay…

So the counterpoint to this is that we are collectively getting more news and more updates than ever before and we’re still in the situation of today.

I can’t argue with your premise because I agree, but the empirical data shows that if anything there is a positive correlation between accessibility of information and further descent into… whatever it is you’d describe is our modern situation.

It may not be causative but it’s also not really a sufficient counteracting force.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#38

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #28

If you're consuming the news like you consume social media, then yes, you'll be affected like you are on social media. There are different kinds of news feeds that don't focus on trivial things like what outrageous things some president is doing.

[deleted]

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#39

Post by mattnewton » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

Yeah people are overdoing it, and not everyone is being motivated to do something by feeling mad, but maybe instead of throwing up your hands that you can’t care about soybean tariffs, you could try to educate yourself on tariffs and choose your political representatives based on whether or not they are doing a good job. Or read more narrow news. Completely shutting down the channel seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

This kind of checking out / mass abdication and apathy seems really dangerous in a democracy.

Re: Reading the news is the new smoking

#40

Post by afavour » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

appplication wrote: post #37

afavour wrote: post #27

This feels dangerous. Being obsessed with reading the news, watching endless cable news, getting steams of push notifications… yeah, unhealthy. But completely ignorance of what’s going on in the world is not something to be lauded. It’s how we’ve ended up in the situation we find ourselves in today, a fact free environment where politicians get away with murder (sometimes literally!) because so many people aren’t pay…

So the counterpoint to this is that we are collectively getting more news and more updates than ever before and we’re still in the situation of today. I can’t argue with your premise because I agree, but the empirical data shows that if anything there is a positive correlation between accessibility of information and further descent into… whatever it is you’d describe is our modern situation. It may not be causative…

I don’t think we can examine these things in isolation. We do have more and more news available to us than ever before but:

a) there are more other things than ever before too. Used to be folks would watch the nightly news because there were only four channels or so to even watch. Now you have endless options.

b) the competition between all the news options means that more of them are leaning into opinionated content that you’ll either identify with on a tribal basis or get outraged by, because that gets more views. Informing the public is a secondary goal.