Stop Reading The News!

[nurzumspass]

"Some poor phoneless fool is probably sitting next to a waterfall somewhere, totally unaware of how angry and scared he's supposed to be." - Duncan Trussell

[SHAO-ffnt]

My grandmother always, after hearing me complain or rant about something, said: "what will you do about it?". I hated that when I was younger because I thought she was just being dismissive. Now I understand why she said that. Taking an action about things that we can change is a step towards a better future, and of things we can't really do anything about, just try to move on and focus on other things. Might not be the perfect way to live, but I think it helps me with my mental well-being during these trying times.

[JJMcCullough]

I think this was a pretty fair and balanced take. Too often, critiques of the modern news media are all "supply" focused — that is, they presume the existence of a sinister media industry imposing a bad product on the public. But media today is very hyper-competitive, the market has never been more crowded. This creates a powerful incentive to generate content that attracts clicks and eyeballs, which in turn requires a pretty sophisticated understanding of audience psychology.

I've worked in media for quite a while, and I've often seen people make start-up media outlets with the best of intentions – to create a more moral and ethical "alternative" media, but sooner rather than later, the need to please the audience sees the content start to decay in a more shallow, biased, pessimistic, sensationalistic direction. Which does suggest that we, as media consumers, need to think more critically about WHY we are attracted to "bad news" (in both senses of the term) in the first place, and whether we can change our consumption habits to change what the market offers.

[wolfhard]

Becoming an actual expert in a given subject will quickly make you realize how wrong most news reports are.

Using myself as an example, I studied law and have been working in the field for years. Between academic and practical knowledge I can confidently state that I have never read an article from a general news source regarding a legal issue that wasn't sligthly to grossly misinformed, biased or just plain wrong.

That made me wonder, how much else is being reported wrong? Well, talk to any expert in any field and they will tell you... most of it. This is not some great conspiracy, just a symptom of increasingly confused people in a fast moving, complex world.

[cringecande_]

"You don't need to have an opinion on everything" is something that I really needed to hear

[BlackThoughts]

I’ve had this growing intuition that reading history books/learning about historical events allows me to understand world events much more than hearing about which city was bombed in Ukraine today (which is deeply saddening, but since I have no ties to the region, is completely action-less information).

[u-ux]

I have stopped consuming the news for over 10 years now, and I can attest to being calmer, less distracted and more connected to what really matters. As a consequence I think my overall impact in the world has been more positive than it would have been if I had "stayed informed". Really important news gets to me one way or another... not reading the news doesn't mean I am not aware of what is happening. Another benefit was realizing that the things that actually impact our society are - generally - not on the news until it is "too late". Things that shift society tend to happen on the fringe; be it groundbreaking scientific research, technological developments or societal changes. The news just encapsulates things once they become mainstream enough and 'approved' by those who filter content. The real transformation happens way earlier to the news cycle.

[witchypoo]

I’ve had people get pissed at me for avoiding the news as if the information would kill me.I have panic attacks & become horribly depressed by it. & without it I am MUCH happier

The way I see things is that if I can’t help directly then there’s nothing I can do. I’m not cruel or selfish for this. Ignorance truly can be bliss, so we need to know in what ways we should be ignorant & what ways we should be knowledge. We can’t help others if we ourselves are miserable

[julienrodriguez]

For those interested in this video, I recommend the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Niel Postman. He describes how the shift from print news to broadcast news has shifted the priority to entertainment and made it more difficult for us to engage in long form discussions that are capable of considering nuance.

[tsunamio]

3:45 to answer "why do we care about things outside of our own lives", I would say that it may allow us to find examples from which we can learn and generalize about reality.
The USA's solution to its population transportation, the "get a car or fuck off" and its failures in public transportation may help us understand why our local transportation policies may work or fail. Random things in life often intertwine with each other, leading to unforeseeable events with great rewards and great risks.

Seeing how bad things can get also help fix our understanding of what a good country, what a good father, and what a good company really is. We can appreciate the luxe and quality of our lives when we know how most people are actually living theirs. Or we may find better lifestyles that we were oblivious to.

But you made a wonderful point. Current news is a bit pile of dogshit that provides no insight and mislead us constantly. It's also abrasive and uninformative for most of us anyway.

[trystanexul]

I’m always humbled by your evaluation of our societal and human state. I find you very impactful in my life and it always calms me down and changes the way I interact with people. Thanks 🙏

[IsaacMorgan]

I do love the "stop reading the news, it makes you anxious." Immediately followed by "if your Facebook gets hacked you'll quickly become a victim of ID theft so buy this thing" 🤣 I can respect you gotta get your bag but I went from calming down to revving up in the space of 10 seconds cause of ads in a video designed to calm.

[noel-tsjr]

This video genuinely means a lot to me at this time. I stopped reading the news a year ago due to OCD, but lately it has been driving me to check them every hour on the hour. Thank you so much for this reminder.

[ti]

The thing is... YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter are quickly becoming the exact same thing that we were avoiding in the news. So... It might be advisable to just stay off the internet other than for things like education, research, music, art, games, ACTUAL socializing, etc

[SmallAngryNerd]

the hardest thing to convince some of my younger, more passionate friends is: you dont need to care about everything. If you can't do anything about it, don't worry about it. Yes, people dying on the other side of the world is bad, but what am I, a 20-something in ohio, going to do about it? Not worrying about something is not the same as apathy. It's not that I don't care about the lives of strangers, it's that I'm choosing to worry about things that I can actually do something about. Think about it like this: if you only had enough money to pay rent, would you donate that money to charity, or pay your rent?

[olundqvist]

"Tend to the garden you can touch"

[jimpikles]

I did this myself a few years ago, it made a significant positive difference. Unfortunately being on the internet makes it hard to avoid entirely avoid.

[iirovaltonen]

When the telegraph was invented and the first line was created between London and New York, contemporary people were questioning the effects that the information flood will have on people's mental health - and this happened in the 1800s.

[diesdas]

I also feel like cutting of the stream of constant negative news is beneficial for my mental health, BUT at the same time I remember that Christopher Hitchens once said that every day, when he reads the newspaper and gets upset about some form of stupidity/evil in the world, it is a reminder to him, that he hasnt yet become numb on these topics. Being upset shows you that you still have a sense of moral intuition and care about these things, instead of spiraling in a kind of nihilistic indifference, because you cant do anything anyway (not saying that this video is arguing for nihilism tho). Idk something something finding the right balance

Edit: Also, I think a lot of the problems raised stem from general human flaws (confirmation bias for example) and are also a problem when doing more in depth reading. Beyond that, I think theres also a huge difference in quality when it comes to different news sources. There are a lot of "respectable" news sources that dont rely that much on playing into your fears and hyping up scandals etc. To be fair, im german and it seems to me that the american media is often much more polemic and agressive than what I am used too. I like your editing style btw

[tubaboytom]

If people gave more of a shit about their local communities as much as they did about global issues we'd probably have a few less global issues to worry about.