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I stopped following the news

mertbulan.com

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Re: I stopped following the news

#41

Post by keiferski »

ben_w wrote: post #37
keiferski wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this is downvoted really says it all. "I don't read the news" is pretty much dependent on one's profession being insulated from changing events. Which is not surprising why it's a popular opinion amongst technocrats that would rather not have democracy in the first place.

Excerpt from link: For the rest of the news, I am considering subscribing to a magazine that covers important events in Germany, the EU, or the world every few months. This kind of format filters out short-term noise and fear-driven stories. Elections happen even less frequently than this. If your democracy disintegrates with less than a few months of warning, you were probably invaded and noticed even without the ne…

Just because news orgs are incentivized to be controversial and attention-seeking doesn’t mean that the world isn’t changing rapidly.

Personally I think once a week magazines / reviews are a good compromise. I’m not sure how useful reading 3 month old news will be.

Re: I stopped following the news

#42

Post by fredley »

Once you start noticing how often you see content that references e.g. anything that's happening in the US right now (I'm in the UK), you realise how 'news' is everywhere.

If you go on reddit, unless you've curated your subreddits and never touch /all or /popular, it's very heavy with 'news'. The Google app, a left-swipe by default on your Android phone is all 'news'. Twxtter/Bluesky/etc. are full of news. Avoiding news entirely is almost impossible on today's internet.

I have had success with this approach too, but key to all this is being careful about where you go online to minimise exposure. These days I don't use any 'social media' platforms, but I do visit HN and BBC news (both of which are of higher quality than most places, and crucially only have a few stories on a typical day - the rate of new content is low). This way I stay informed without falling down rabbit holes about every twist and turn of every (mostly awful/depressing) thing happening in the World.

Re: I stopped following the news

#43

Post by james-bcn »

sjw987 wrote: post #4

I think it's important to keep reading the news occasionally. Personally, I, as a programmer, read the news in the same way as my grandad who was a farmer. I read a printed weekly publication (in my case The Economist) on Sunday morning. Outside of Sunday morning I don't read the news at all. I prefer printed news to media-supported news, because I think the imagery (I acknowledge The Economist still has images) and…

The Economist rocks. They also have a wonderful daily summary of the news that takes five mins to read.

Re: I stopped following the news

#44

Post by tpoacher »

As that famous Mark Twain quote goes, "If you don't read the news, you're uninformed; if you do read the news, you're misinformed."

And these days, you're misinformed with a good dose of dramatic Hans-Zimmer-like soundtrack and visuals designed to evoke fear and outrage.

Re: I stopped following the news

#45

Post by fransje26 »

sjw987 wrote: post #4

I think it's important to keep reading the news occasionally. Personally, I, as a programmer, read the news in the same way as my grandad who was a farmer. I read a printed weekly publication (in my case The Economist) on Sunday morning. Outside of Sunday morning I don't read the news at all. I prefer printed news to media-supported news, because I think the imagery (I acknowledge The Economist still has images) and…

> The Economist

Speaking of an anger-inducing publication..

Re: I stopped following the news

#46

Post by crnkofe »

I also joined the club recently. Global newsfeeds from social media have become infested with AI slop, near constant Trump/ICE BS spam in addition to existing clickbait vids and ads. News media front pages are essentially Trump outlets and this guy puts out an insane amount of BS thrash that only ennervates and creates discord. There's not that much happening so blank pages are just filled with something to make it look like news. I'm no longer informed from all of this. It just feels like being a living spam folder.

Re: I stopped following the news

#47

Post by nialv7 »

What a privilege, what a luxury, to be able to turn a blind eye to all the injustice that's currently happening in the world...

Sure, do what you want, ignore news if that makes you feel better, but do realise for many, they are not afforded this kind of luxury.

Re: I stopped following the news

#49

Post by appplication »

pendenthistory wrote: post #31
sjw987 wrote: post #4

I think it's important to keep reading the news occasionally. Personally, I, as a programmer, read the news in the same way as my grandad who was a farmer. I read a printed weekly publication (in my case The Economist) on Sunday morning. Outside of Sunday morning I don't read the news at all. I prefer printed news to media-supported news, because I think the imagery (I acknowledge The Economist still has images) and…

I would like a weekly physical Sunday paper with some general news and printed substack articles tailored to me.

I’ve been kicking around an idea for a while now that’s basically a no-headlines, curated (generally long-form) media aggregation site. No algorithm, no personalization, no AI. Just topics you can choose to follow.

The basic idea is you get one article at a time fed to you (no headline scrolling like Reddit or HN), and doesn’t let you proceed to the next article until you’ve scrolled through at least x% of the current article or spent a minimum time threshold reading it. Maybe allow a limited number of “skips” per day if the content really isn’t for you. Basically the idea is to force you to slow down and actually engage with the content by removing mechanisms that promote mindless scrolling and dopamine rush.

Re: I stopped following the news

#50

Post by ivolimmen »

jeffwass wrote: post #27

At my cousin’s company there are TV’s in the lobby. They used to show news channels. He said clients would come in all stressed out. So they changed to a home improvement channel.

The one featuring Tim Allen? Or is there an actual channel with home improvements in the USA?
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