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News is bad for you

theguardian.com

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Re: News is bad for you

#91

Post by nossim »

jweir wrote: post #58
oskarth wrote: post #20

While I agree with the sentiment, Rolf Dobelli himself is a plagiarist. This whole reasoning is basically stolen from Nassim Taleb. http://fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm http://blog.chabris.com/2013/09/similarities-between-rolf-do... EDIT: For another take on not reading the news, see http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

He mentions Taleb in the article, and is it Taleb who came up with the idea that news is bad?

I don't think so this idea is in Neil Postman's book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" (1985). A must read.

Re: News is bad for you

#92

Post by bane »

News is terrible for me at least. For stress related reasons I decided at the beginning of 2013 that I would try and avoid daily contact with news (outside of anything important enough to percolate up HN, reddit and FB). I'm much more relaxed and less stressed and find that in casual conversation I'm about as up-to-date on important events as most people I know.

Recently I was looking for information on something and ended up on CNN.com and was awestruck at how much just absolutely unnewsworthy garbage filled the pages. Curious I looked around at other new sites to see if they were all worse than I remember and yes, pretty much they were full of gossip, misinformation and obvious fear mongering.

No thanks, I like this new system better.

Re: News is bad for you

#93

Post by ctdonath »

normloman wrote: post #60
LionRoar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew also up without a television. That was no deliberate choice, my parents are orthodox christians. I was very creative in that period and I kinda miss that now :)

So return to that period by giving up the tv again.

I did. No TV thru high school, minimal later, culminating in full-slate cable service, then dumped it all for nothing more than an occasional DVD. Have no idea how any TV-watchers get anything done, as I'm working (home chores included) flat-out 18 hours a day and feel I can barely keep up with life.

Re: News is bad for you

#94

Post by dublinben »

nathan_long wrote: post #29

The biggest problem with news is that it's about newness and rarity. Whereas what we actually need to know is mostly not new. Eg, "man eaten by alligator" is a billion times less important than "decades of data say you will likely get heart disease." Another serious problem with news is its schedule. A daily paper must publish something every day, even if nothing important has happened. An hourly newscast is worse. M…

I recommend reading weekly magazines for exactly this reason. The longer time to publish also affords better perspective than the 24 second, Twitter-fueled, cable/internet news cycle.

Re: News is bad for you

#95

Post by LionRoar »

normloman wrote: post #60
LionRoar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew also up without a television. That was no deliberate choice, my parents are orthodox christians. I was very creative in that period and I kinda miss that now :)

So return to that period by giving up the tv again.

The problem now is not the tv anymore. I grew up and have now to deal with the distractions of this age and time.

Re: News is bad for you

#97

Post by ctdonath »

So what source is there for "what you actually need to know" news? Something that's not afraid to say "today's need-to-know headlines: none." Something that keeps track of the status of significant long-term stories even while they're not catchy, knowing that something is happening, and predicting it will be a big deal again later. Something that dispenses with the "sensational but not relevant" stories. Something that might have a modest price tag attached, to dispense with the necessity to grab maximum eyeballs daily to sell ad space. Thoughts? Future YC candidate maybe?

Re: News is bad for you

#98

Post by cschmidt »

JeffJenkins wrote: post #8

For anyone who isn't ready to completely turn off the news spigot, consider switching to a weekly (or monthly) source of news. I get all of my (non-HN) news from The Economist's audio edition. It's released weekly and they have a section right at the start about big things happening in business/politics around the world in the last week. It's no more than a couple minutes to scan, and 10-20 in normal speed audio. The…

I also love the Economist audio edition. I listen to it during my commute, and mostly get through it each week. It kept me sane on a horrible commute with my previous job.

They have a separate digital subscription, if you just want the website and audio edition. It is included in a print subscription as well. You can buy a single week, if you want to try it out.

Highly recommended if you want to ignore the advice of the OP.

Re: News is bad for you

#99

Post by sazpaz »

oskarth wrote: post #20

While I agree with the sentiment, Rolf Dobelli himself is a plagiarist. This whole reasoning is basically stolen from Nassim Taleb. http://fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm http://blog.chabris.com/2013/09/similarities-between-rolf-do... EDIT: For another take on not reading the news, see http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

His account on the plagiarism story. http://www.dobelli.com/book-corrections/taleb

It's definitely easy to see his book as heavily influenced by Taleb, but I supposed everything would be correctly referenced to Taleb — I never actually went to check references. Despite that, the book is a great summary of thinking biases and is clearly explained.

Re: News is bad for you

#100

Post by aleyan »

I first encountered this line of reasoning in Bulgakov's excellent 1925 book, Heart of a Dog when a doctor advises one of his friends:

  If you care about your digestion, my advice is—don't talk
  about bolshevism or medicine at table. And, god forbid—never
  read soviet newspapers before dinner.
It seems to me that it has long been known that unactionable information is not good for you.

Curiously, another HN reader expressed the same [1] feelings about HN.

[1] http://anton.kovalyov.net/p/soviet-newspapers/

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