“Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a subtle thing. One must know how to eat, yet just think – most people don’t know how to eat at all. One must not only know what to eat, but when and how.’ (Philip Philipovich waved his fork meaningfully.) ‘And what to say while you’re eating. Yes, my dear sir. 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.’ ‘M’mm . . . But there are no other newspapers.’ ‘In that case don’t read any at all. Do you know I once made thirty tests in my clinic. And what do you think? The patients who never read newspapers felt excellent. Those whom I specially made read Pravda all lost weight.”
Love this, but since the book has an anti-Soviet sentiment, I don't think we could generalize this quote. In USSR you would read only what you should and you didn't really have a choice. Freedom of press was something impossible to imagine.
I cannot say that everything what we read, or choose to read today is worth reading but there is a good press, which is at times difficult to find, but you will never get to it if you don't filter.
I see little difference CNN has clear political angle so does FOX which is basically directed by owners interests. That's a very short through to the USSR old times. If I ever turn on either one I feel that I am back to USSR. (I lived in US 1995-2004) and came back to US in 2015 the difference is very stark I would imaging when it was happening gradually it would be less noticeable vs going from 2000 +/- version to today. In USSR you had a small group of people (Politburo) controlling among other things all the media. If you take the number of people in US exerting major influence on media through ownership it's pretty much smaller number than even members of Politburo.
I think the piece was aiming for maximum irony. Also note: "In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada (LINK) showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases."
Same holds true for watching "House of Cards" and "The mechanism". If you can watch those without getting angry you probably didn't get it. With "it" I mean the unhappiness ;)
I read this years ago and stopped reading and watching news. Never missed a thing. Important things you will hear one way or another and the rest is just noise. Loud distracting noise.
I didn't mean to offend you, in fact, I am trying to consume less 'news' myself since a few years. And while I agree that the HN comments hold a lot of high quality information, I see that HN, in general, has a similar effect on my concentration and productivity as other news/media sites.
So I don't try to not read HN at all, but to become aware of the effect it has on me and limit my news consumption to a healthy dose ;-)
Haven't watched the news in at least 5 years. Actually I haven't watched TV in the last 5 years even. So I don't have ads bombarding me, or fear and propaganda coming in every day.
Highly recommended. You have one life. Make sure it counts as a happy one.
Ditto. I was also surprised how much happier I was when I deleted all the news apps off my phone. I realized that there's really no good reason for most people to get real-time news alerts except to feed an addiction.
Yes. I would categorize as "bad news" (or "news news") all the FB outrage, policital stuff, the Waymo lawsuit, etc. Bad as in getting to read them for very small content almost everyday doesn't help.
On the other hand, HN is very useful for keeping up with developments in my area, interesting technical articles, insightful discussions. HN is usually not "news news".
Somewhat agree as I'm not as depressed as when I'm on reddit. But just in the past few weeks we've had things like: active shooter on youtube campus, all the facebook doom and gloom, cell phones cause cancer in male rats (I think I got that from hacker news), China's social credit system, etc.
I have a friend who actually doesn't follow the news (I'm not sure he knows what cambridge analytica is yet) and he tells me all the time how doom and gloom I am just from reading hacker news.
Others would classify it as "conservative" or "libertarian" rather than "liberal". Which really means it's not a very effective "echo chamber". You will read opinions different than your own on HN. If that's upsetting to you, HN may not be your cup of tea.
I don't think anyone would classify the HN crowd as "conservative" in the US political spectrum sense. Libertarian I can see, but I don't think I've ever seen socially conservative posts/comments voted up.
HN's bubble is a bit more tone-sensitive, where rowdy rabble-rousing from any side usually gets squashed...but the thresholds of tolerance are a bit skewed with softly-worded comments.
Carefully crafted traditional/conservative comments do get voted up, particularly if written knowing that they're addressing a potentially hostile audience. Those posting progressive viewpoints can generally get away with more blunt/aggressive language.
I wonder how it's fed. I have BBC app on the phone but its quality is going down a lot (having random tweets about the topic inserted into articles, WTF? I care about proper journalism, not some random crowd bitchin'), for example there was nothing about Palestinian protests having > thousands injured and 19 dead etc
98% of news is of no import. The tiny fraction that will impact our lives to significant degree or have global effect will be almost impossible to miss.
You didn't need to watch the nightly bulletin or check a news site to hear of climate change, the US presidential election, Brexit and so on. You'd get to hear of those almost regardless of where you hang out on the internet.
The rest probably makes no difference to your life.
Exactly. I just let other people obsess over news. They’ll filter through the 99% garbage and I’ll pick up whatever is actually important through them.
I know people in my family whose eyes are glued to news all the time and it’s kind of sad. Blowing all that attention on stuff that ultimately does not affect you.
The internet changed from an informational "push" method to making it possible and easy to "pull" "just" the information a person is interested in.
Similar to others, I stopped watching the news 10 years ago. Yes, fatal car accidents and scary robberies are unfortunate and tragic but also fairly rare. The worry the news causes is irrational. The news would just stir up FUD and stress, because under FUD people are less likely to think and more likely to follow commands, even "benign" ones and subtle hints like "buy this toothpaste to have a 'socially' acceptable white smile". It's not a social standard, it's a company forcing their standard on the public to make it a social and peer force because the company stands to benefit from it. I feel less compelled to go to a store and buy new electronics and gadgets and a plethora of other things. I spend less time chasing the things TV and media attempts to tell us all to obtain.
Being aloof to the gossip, rumors, and controversies of the "news" seems pro-social to me because it allows you to discuss these issues with people in a more civil manner simply because you are not so emotionally charged over the issues as those who obssesively ruminate on them.
I had a newsletter that went out once a week and summarized the 10 most "important" news happenings of the previous week. Not gossip or politics or entertainment but "this happened and here is why it matters."
Granted I could have marketed it better but there was very little interest.
I never bought a TV when I moved to my own appartment many years ago. Now when I visit people having their TV on in the background it feels like overly loud. Am I getting more sensitive to noise too? It feels like information overflow and the only thing I can do is give up and just disappear into the TV. I never regret not buying that TV 25+ years ago. Now we do have one but it's only used for selected programs a couple of times per week or the odd movie or game. When ads show up, sound is off and we do the dishes or whatever.
I gave up watching TV news at least ten years ago. The combination of owning no television at the time and dial-up Internet virtually eliminated my consumption of always-on visual news. I'm not sure if I'm happier, but the few times I've switched on the news in recent years, I've noticed almost immediately how I felt after viewing.
24-hour TV news is in a position where there is only so much data, but the staff has to keep talking to avoid dead air. What we end up with is mostly speculation and banter without a lot of substance. The next big reveal is always after the commercial break, and there's only enough morsels to keep you watching, never enough to satisfy one's curiosity.
In spite of the urgency with which television news is framed, very little of what makes the news has short-term consequences to me. Typically if there's a situation where I'm affected, I already know about it. The streets are flooding, the phone is receiving alerts, or whatever. Everything else can be reflected upon over a period of time. One thing I've noticed with regards to TV news is how little agency I have as a person over the situations presented. It's a litany of reminders of things we can't control.
I will soon be buying my own house and have vowed that the idiot box won't be a part of it. Also, I am going to make this abundantly clear to my future wife - whoever she may be.
I watch TV occassionally while cleaning the apartment etc., but only the public broadcasters' documentary channels. No ads, no breaking news, no day-to-day politics. The only thing that annoys me is when a historical documentary pushes its narrative of what's good and what's bad without allowing for any shade of gray inbetween.
While I understand the sentiment, I don't think it's fair to deprive yourself of a form of entertainment (i.e owning a TV) because there are commercials. If that were the case, wouldn't you have given up on the internet a long time ago due to the nature of ads and propaganda being everywhere?
Entairtainment content is much worse then commercials. If PowerRangers are stupid for you, to me all movies and shows are as stupid as PowerRangers, as all of them use fake character building to touch someone's heart (mom got cancer, dad left, girlfriend cheating) they include 'all of the above' to touch as much of the audience as possible, only small part are passive and cold to the lure reach, most are lured in and hooked and are now users of the entairtainment industry. Facebook (friend news) and real news are no beter then this, not even sports are better then this nowdays, before sports were about sport now they use the same techniques as fiction novels and movies do, they build character, they show life of Shaqile Oneal what he does when he doesn't play for instance charity donations, community reach etc, they make stars out of players and everyone has their favorite, muslims like Ronaldo cuz he been to a mosque, jews like Messi cuz, well whatever u get the point, noone would watch South American volleyball or basketball team or Saudi Arabian football league because why, yes u guessed it, you don't know anyone there, there are no characters, only those people there know the players so they watch them. And what happens after the game, an hour of talk "player did this he did that, couach did this did that, should have done that and this and instead now we have this, he gets what he asked for, need a better coach" or whatever, then you listen to those people analyze the game to get you thinking, get your thoughts circling around the same thing, then you go to a bar with your friends order a beer and repeat the same thing those people on tv said, or you throw in your own opinion, cuz who needs those stupid analyzers on tv when you know better, Zlatan Ibrahimovic yey, no I really like that guy as a dude, I could care less about his abilities, I mean he's the new Chuck Norris, he hurt his knees went to a doctor and the doctors wanted to study him because of how good of a shape his knees were haha... anyway, cocky dude. But he's real, noone made him out like that, he made his own character. It's because we do in real life remember characters as we perceive them with values we recognize, because the ones we don't recognize we just havent learned yet, but the problem with fake characters is that they are fake, and people who watch more then 8 hours a day of tv shows or sports really get immersed into those characters that it's a disease, it's an addiction that hasn't been diagnosed yet, Tupac said he didn't promote Thug Life he diagnosed it, he really did. If average US citizen watches 8 hours a day of TV, that means that on the extreme ends of this line there's a dude who watches 0 hours of TV, I saw a guy comment here he don't watch TV, but then this also means that there's that dude who watches 16 horus a day, everything over 2hrs a day is a disease, if you don't know how to select what you watch, and I do mean if you don't watch 'Life of Birds' "Planet Earth" and other shows narrated by David Attenborough you are being dummbed down by occupying your mind with thoughts of the round ball, players, fake characters, made up stories that touch your heart and soul, you're an addict of a storyline and the only place you actually think is while taking a shit on the toilet because there is no TV there, but sometimes even there you bring your cell phone or a news paper and out of a 100% of the day you turn the thinking part of the brain on for 0% and now it's just repetitious things like, today they scored 75, tomorrow 65, tomorrow 32, fauls 32, etc, when you ask a person what you think about so and so, most will not actually 'think' but rather will just pull out an already thought-out thought they had prepared earlier when they were sitting on the toilet thinking, as when you watch tv you don't really think, you just emotionaly invest yourself and your memory to those character...
I just listened to a podcast with Laurie Santos, all about her course on happiness research, which quickly became the most popular course ever taught at Yale.
https://verybadwizards.fireside.fm/136
It's surprising how much the research validates things we all intuitively know or suspect about happiness, but routinely fail to put into practice. Exercise. Sleep. Mindfulness. Human interactions. Have some free time. "Avoid news" seems like it might fit too.
What do you guys do if you need a short break from work? Between tasks or if I have finished something mentally demanding, I will often skim some news sites or hacker news.
Any recommendation what else to do as a quick break between programming tasks?
I think a lot of the (very valid) points in the article apply more to mainstream news than industry-focused news like HN. That said, https://news.ycombinator.com/best acts as a good low-pass filter for the "wrong" type of news.
This is what I have been telling family and friends for years! Life is about personal connections and leading a productive life. News ingestion is harmful to both activities.
Ironic, Guardian warns us about news consumption and I donate $5/month to them because next to NPR they are the best news source for me.
Right and when the secret police come to your door you will be surprised. Wait, you say, when did we get taken over by a dictator? What happened to our democracy? Why is my internet suddenly riddled with NO everywhere? How come my job vanished? Why are my children suddenly forced to eat dirt? Why do I live in a crime infested neighborhood that used to be safe? Why did evil people destroy my environment? Oh yeah, I didn't pay attention.
It's not News you should be looking for, but information, and that's the real problem. If you ignore what is going on in the world because you don't want o hear anything hard you may be blissful, but you are just not involved, and all of us will suffer because you did not care to participate. If finding your information in "News" which is determined to give you false information is bad, ignoring what is going on in life is worse, because the only people who will change things are the very people you don't want doing it.
I remember voting in a bond election in a city of 500,000. Only a few hundred voted. We spent $50M of the people's money because they didn't care. Ignoring News is fine, ignoring what is going on is not.
"Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too."
Which seemed like a non-sequitur to me. How is investigative journalism not news? Virtually every one of his arguments applies equally to investigative journalism, and the fact that he explicitly overrides those arguments demonstrates their weakness.
> It's not News you should be looking for, but information, and that's the real problem
This is an excellent distinction!
> I remember voting in a bond election in a city of 500,000. Only a few hundred voted. We spent $50M of the people's money because they didn't care. Ignoring News is fine, ignoring what is going on is not.
I'm guilty of not following my own advice here, but anybody who feels utterly overwhelmed and powerless by national/world politics can definitely be involved or at least informed at the local level!
I remember voting in a bond election in a city of 500,000. Only a few hundred voted. We spent $50M of the people's money because they didn't care.
Similar in my city (250K people, a few hundred voters on the participatory budget to decide what to spend several million € on). Reaction of many people: "we elect these politicians to make decisions for us for four years and manage the budget, and that's what they should do, why should they ask anyone instead of doing their job?" That, when the participatory budget was about 1% of the total budget, and it was an explicit promise in the platform that was voted in the elections. Sigh.
You should follow what's relevant to you and where you live: local force twitter account, local community, any risky mother nature alert if any, etc... only real information, and not "news"
When I worked in television news, long ago, it was under the wing of the independent news department. TV news, now, is under the programming department and beholding to marketing. Thus, you'll find "news" stories about products being introduced--even promoted--by "news stories" and pretty boys and girls. Especially on local TV shows where money is tighter and few stations employ full-time news personnel to actually dig into a story and are only "rip-and-readers" as we called them back in the day.
Giving up political news didn't make me happier, but it certainly reduced that niggling feeling that everything is headed towards doom.
It's said that "an informed citizenry is the bulwark of democracy", and that's probably why many of us consume so much political news.
However, I feel seeing the news and expressing outrage privately or on social media have become low-effort excuses for not doing things that can actually improve our governments. Outrage does not affect anything except our own peace of mind and health.
As far as I can tell, atleast in my country, only two things lead towards any real change - 1)protests and 2)money. Either I should put in the effort to organize people and protest, or I should spend money trying to influence decision makers. Since I suck at the first and lack in the second, I decided to be apathetic towards everything political.
The average citizen (not organizing protests and keeping away from fruitless online outrage) can probably catch up with all relevant political news in 1-2 hours/month of concentrated effort.
I've started doing just that and it has had great impact on my mental health. I don't feel any less prepared to make an impact when the time comes (elections, sporadic talks with friends and family).
Should I be more engaged? Surely. But I just look at all of it and think it's a necessary evil and I'm happy other people feel more inclined to participate heavily. I just don't have the mental skills to keep up and be sane.
It's highly centered on my country so I'm not sure it's of use to a global audience.
But it's a mix of filtering actual facts from newspaper articles on both sides of the spectrum (they usually carry very little information and mostly repeat words to fill up screen space), then check a few respected journalists publishing analysis after a few weeks (again, from left/right). They will be biased, like anything, but there's a kernel of Truth even when I disagree. So that's useful for informing my thoughts.
"catch up with all relevant political news in 1-2 hours/month of concentrated effort."
I have noticed this too when coming back from a month long trip. Usually nothing important has changed. I would argue that by checking once a month you get a better idea of the big picture because you deal less with the noise. At my company they have CNN playing at lunch time and during that hour almost nothing important gets transmitted. It's just endless discussion about the same topics.
Of course you need to read the news. Select your news sources carefully and limit or eliminate your exposure to social media discussions of the news.
I understand the sentiment that news can make you depressed, but reading the news can also spur people to act positively in a multitude of ways.
When a natural disaster strikes and the news is filled with stories of anguish and despair in the aftermath, people donate to charities because of the news reports they've seen.
Imagine if we never read the news because such stories were too depressing?
Imagine if this young student had never seen a harrowing news report about the Syrian war?
I've become very jaded about the world in general largely because I used to read the news every day.
News that I actually care about is the stuff I learn by talking to people in person. It's also a lot less likely to be negative news. Then, once it's been established that I care about it, I'll do research about it - whether that's talking to friends about personal news, or reading online about a new bill that would affect people I care about.
> eliminate your exposure to social media discussions of the news.
Sadly most news has become a newsfeed. CNN, Fox, etc are all newsfeeds-breaking news! new update! new notification! here are some pundits talking about it.
The reality is we need news-we don't need a 24/7 news cycle.
You may read this tariff story and think, what’s the big deal? The story’s not bad. Isn’t it reasonable to talk about effects of current events in this way? I answer, absolutely not. Such speculation is a complete waste of time. It’s useless. It’s bullshit on the front page of the Times.
It's not just news. I cut out mainstream media several years ago, and noted a definite improvement in my psychological well-being.
As of the end of last year, I stopped engaging in mainstream social media. So much better.
I still keep a Facebook account for Messenger and Events, but don't post, read timelines, or participate.
Not only do I have more time to read books and learn new things -- made pita bread from scratch for the first time this week -- but I am in general, notably happier and more focused.
I suspect that information hygiene is going to be one of the great underrated skills of the digital age.
Hacker News is an exception that I indulge in maybe once a week or two -- today's the day! -- as most of what ends up on here is worthwhile, and the moderation team has done an excellent job of keeping the signal-to-noise ratio high.
Quora also tends to be good, between Be Nice Be Respectful (BNBR), and the Real Name policy, although they recently went downhill by interleaving the standard cesspool that is mainstream news in the Quora feed.
Reddit... there are a few gold nuggets (/r/writingprompts), but overall it's just a crapfest.
Hate to point it out but the 24 hour news cycle and hell of continuous breaking news predates the Trump presidency by several decades. I recall being disgusted by it during the late nineties when cable news started being a big thing, but it probably started even before that.
I'm in a similar boat. I felt very over whelmed and addicted to social media and news in general in college.
I've got rid of all my social media other than twitter and linkedin which I use for work. Facebook I only use for messenger. I check reddit once or twice a day but rarely do I scroll past the first page. My overall mental health is much better. I feel a little bit of sadness when I see friends who HAVE to check their phones (social media) after being without it for a hour. It's great in moderation but I think most people get too sucked in.
It's hard to get rid of it though. I suffer from this, when I get up the first thing I do is open reddit. I am actually thinking about blocking the entire site in the host file, on pc as well as android...
I used to charge my phone overnight on my bedside table. Recently I moved it into another room so I'm not tempted to use it first-thing in the morning.
Hearing so many people complain about the time they spend on facebook has gotten me thinking of how I spend my own time on the internet. I don't really sit on facebook or any other common social media sites to any significant degree and many friends think I'm almost a luddite. But simultaneously I feel like I'm waaaaaaay too distracted by information online. But for me it's no different than it was 20 years ago. There are a million forums out there with super interesting information. In fact over the years I've only become more specialized in my information consumption in ways that are _almost_ good. I.e. I tend to keep up on different technical news and read into technology in general pretty deeply and this has had positive effects on my career. And so it's sometimes good because I get some good knowledge, but at the same time if I'm reading about how to implement stuff in FPGAs to avoid doing my taxes I'm definitely not making much sense in the long run.
I'm trying to get myself more organized and to instead focus on slightly longer projects with determined goals, but I really have a hard time breaking my habits of information ingestion. In many ways the internet has helped me grow intellectually so much, but simultaneously I feel like I lose any sense of present and physical presense. And it's just so hard for me to focus and do the mundane things that I find uninteresting.
I think I'll post this and then close out HN for a bit. Traveling for the weekend so maybe I can sucessfully limit myself to only actually necessary internet usage and avoid any consumption of unimportant crap. We'll just have to see...
This is the key. If you start posting it becomes a waiting game for the conversation to begin. I feel the need to monitor and wait for responses.
It's fun but obviously mentally taxing. An online conversation keeps me constantly engaged but distracts me heavily from other things. It's extremely hard for me to not want to openly opine and share on the various social networks about subjects I care about.
I get that stopping watching movies and TV would improve your mood, but I love how music makes me feel and I think (though haven’t tested) that if I stopped listening to music id be a little less jolly.
If being happy is your ultimate life goal then it's probably right. Although the quest for happiness should not be the only thing we work for. Personally I think this is a very selfish way of thinking.
Being informed and capable of logical thinking considering your environment is equally important. That said, we should seek for good quality news and I agree with the article on this point about investigation journalism. But this is like research, it is essential, has a cost and not all the time succeeds.
As a citizen it's a duty to be well informed so we can participate in democracy efficiently (Quoting Greek philosophers here).
This assumes that consuming the news equates to being well informed. I certainly doubt that assumption. Journalism relating to areas I know well is often woefully inaccurate, if it even is reporting rather than opinion. And keeping in mind the Gell-Mann Effect, I should probably not give the stories about topics beyond my expertise the benefit of the doubt.
Almost everyone would agree that being informed is important. The question is whether the news leads to being informed. Many would argue that daily news consumption has the opposite effect.
I think that being ignorant of current events in the world around you is irresponsible and selfish. It undermines democracy and prevents you from addressing problems in society where you could make a difference.
A better suggestion is to focus on higher quality news sources: I'd recommend Reuters (try the iOS app) and the Economist, and Channel 4 News in the UK.
Seeking happiness is a trap in itself though. This has been extensively discussed by centuries of philosophers. Happiness is transitory and can never be sustained.
What counts as sustained? Does a bad day, week, month, or year disrupt it? Or is a year or decade of general happiness mean it is sustained? Does it have to last until your death?
Maybe it requires the context of your first sentence about seeking happiness.
For myself, I would not say I seek it, but that I chose it. I feel I've been generally happy nearly always. Sure, there have been stresses, losses, tragedies, tears, and such. There have been extended periods of feelings of inadequacy and of being trapped. Yet, even through all such events and periods, I'd say I tend to be happy. And the last major part of a decade has been the most fulfilling and blessed part of my life yet. Sure, it could come crashing down. Or it could get even better! I chose to be happy with where I have been, where I am at, and look forward to where I'll go.
The problem is that some news is relevant. One of my friends has given up reading or watching any kind of news altogether. At first this seems impressive but when I asked him about how far his house was from the wildfire, he was like "Umm - what wildfire?". He was oblivious to the fact that country's biggest wildfire was just three miles away from his house. He is a very smart and successful guy and it really jolted me how a guy like him could be oblivious to such an important event that could impact his life. The reason - he doesn't watch news.
I asked him about if he could not see the smoke. He said the wind direction took the smoke away from his house and some hills obstructed his view. He had just moved into the neighborhood so he wasn't friends with the neighbors quite yet.
Wow! I would think the logjam of people stuffing their cars with possessions and getting the hell out of there would have been a clue that something, possibly, was happening that might warrant some further investigation.
There's apparently a fine line between "not ardently following the news" and "not paying attention at all."
That sounds like something that he should have been alerted to via Reverse 911, but I suppose he wasn't properly registered yet if he just moved. I know my county uses Reverse 911 to notify of wildfires, because I errantly received such a warning a few years ago when it was actually for a wildfire in a different part of the county.
But he did find out since you told him. That's the whole reason you don't need to read news because if something in the news is actually important you will find out from people talking about it.
The vast amount of non-relevant news makes it hard to wade through it. I agree that any relevant news will make to you via other means (visual, word of mouth, etc.).
There is a reason that news is like this. Adam Curtis and Oh Dearism is a good watch.
I gave up news last year. It was really hard, I instinctively and habitually checked various news sources, so it was hard to fight this back. I've also removed my Facebook news feed. Now all I consume are HN and Twitter (from which I cull anything political or current affairsy). I have a subscription to Delayed Gratification[1], and am a lot more content now than I used to be.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 243 ms ] thread― Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog
I cannot say that everything what we read, or choose to read today is worth reading but there is a good press, which is at times difficult to find, but you will never get to it if you don't filter.
Most of these sites know they're potentially harmful, the better ones acknowledge it and help their readers avoid the harm.
Also, there should be a 2013 in the title
I read this years ago and stopped reading and watching news. Never missed a thing. Important things you will hear one way or another and the rest is just noise. Loud distracting noise.
But what I like about HN is that the comment section is full of insight about the subject sometimes even debunking the article that was posted.
So yes.
So I don't try to not read HN at all, but to become aware of the effect it has on me and limit my news consumption to a healthy dose ;-)
Highly recommended. You have one life. Make sure it counts as a happy one.
On the other hand, HN is very useful for keeping up with developments in my area, interesting technical articles, insightful discussions. HN is usually not "news news".
I have a friend who actually doesn't follow the news (I'm not sure he knows what cambridge analytica is yet) and he tells me all the time how doom and gloom I am just from reading hacker news.
The truth is HN is Reddit, but with a better interface and a smarter crowd.
Carefully crafted traditional/conservative comments do get voted up, particularly if written knowing that they're addressing a potentially hostile audience. Those posting progressive viewpoints can generally get away with more blunt/aggressive language.
Ideally Id like a weekly review or something where I can spend 30min.
I recongnise it would be beneficial to give up news, but I need to know a bit about whats going on to be social.
I wonder how it's fed. I have BBC app on the phone but its quality is going down a lot (having random tweets about the topic inserted into articles, WTF? I care about proper journalism, not some random crowd bitchin'), for example there was nothing about Palestinian protests having > thousands injured and 19 dead etc
98% of news is of no import. The tiny fraction that will impact our lives to significant degree or have global effect will be almost impossible to miss.
You didn't need to watch the nightly bulletin or check a news site to hear of climate change, the US presidential election, Brexit and so on. You'd get to hear of those almost regardless of where you hang out on the internet.
The rest probably makes no difference to your life.
I've found that I don't, nearly as much as I would have thought.
If people really want to talk about a current event, you can usually get a lot of mileage out of asking them to explain what's going on.
"oh yeah? I didn't hear about that, what happened?"
people like getting to be the expert, they usually don't care about our hot take nearly as much as we like to imagine them caring
I know people in my family whose eyes are glued to news all the time and it’s kind of sad. Blowing all that attention on stuff that ultimately does not affect you.
Similar to others, I stopped watching the news 10 years ago. Yes, fatal car accidents and scary robberies are unfortunate and tragic but also fairly rare. The worry the news causes is irrational. The news would just stir up FUD and stress, because under FUD people are less likely to think and more likely to follow commands, even "benign" ones and subtle hints like "buy this toothpaste to have a 'socially' acceptable white smile". It's not a social standard, it's a company forcing their standard on the public to make it a social and peer force because the company stands to benefit from it. I feel less compelled to go to a store and buy new electronics and gadgets and a plethora of other things. I spend less time chasing the things TV and media attempts to tell us all to obtain.
Granted I could have marketed it better but there was very little interest.
I would have been very interested in that. Too bad there was not enough interest for you to continue.
24-hour TV news is in a position where there is only so much data, but the staff has to keep talking to avoid dead air. What we end up with is mostly speculation and banter without a lot of substance. The next big reveal is always after the commercial break, and there's only enough morsels to keep you watching, never enough to satisfy one's curiosity.
In spite of the urgency with which television news is framed, very little of what makes the news has short-term consequences to me. Typically if there's a situation where I'm affected, I already know about it. The streets are flooding, the phone is receiving alerts, or whatever. Everything else can be reflected upon over a period of time. One thing I've noticed with regards to TV news is how little agency I have as a person over the situations presented. It's a litany of reminders of things we can't control.
A shortened version of the course is available on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being
It's surprising how much the research validates things we all intuitively know or suspect about happiness, but routinely fail to put into practice. Exercise. Sleep. Mindfulness. Human interactions. Have some free time. "Avoid news" seems like it might fit too.
Any recommendation what else to do as a quick break between programming tasks?
Not for my enjoyment. Though by "tea" I mean an infusion, not necessarily tea itself. I actually prefer mint.
What are you basing this off of? How are the comparisons being done? Tea has many benefits provided its not "fake" sugar-riddled tea.
Don't make a comment telling someone else to "stop doing something" without any context about why you're suggesting it.
Take a 5 mins walk.
Ironic, Guardian warns us about news consumption and I donate $5/month to them because next to NPR they are the best news source for me.
It's not News you should be looking for, but information, and that's the real problem. If you ignore what is going on in the world because you don't want o hear anything hard you may be blissful, but you are just not involved, and all of us will suffer because you did not care to participate. If finding your information in "News" which is determined to give you false information is bad, ignoring what is going on in life is worse, because the only people who will change things are the very people you don't want doing it.
I remember voting in a bond election in a city of 500,000. Only a few hundred voted. We spent $50M of the people's money because they didn't care. Ignoring News is fine, ignoring what is going on is not.
"Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too."
This is an excellent distinction!
> I remember voting in a bond election in a city of 500,000. Only a few hundred voted. We spent $50M of the people's money because they didn't care. Ignoring News is fine, ignoring what is going on is not.
I'm guilty of not following my own advice here, but anybody who feels utterly overwhelmed and powerless by national/world politics can definitely be involved or at least informed at the local level!
Similar in my city (250K people, a few hundred voters on the participatory budget to decide what to spend several million € on). Reaction of many people: "we elect these politicians to make decisions for us for four years and manage the budget, and that's what they should do, why should they ask anyone instead of doing their job?" That, when the participatory budget was about 1% of the total budget, and it was an explicit promise in the platform that was voted in the elections. Sigh.
It's said that "an informed citizenry is the bulwark of democracy", and that's probably why many of us consume so much political news.
However, I feel seeing the news and expressing outrage privately or on social media have become low-effort excuses for not doing things that can actually improve our governments. Outrage does not affect anything except our own peace of mind and health.
As far as I can tell, atleast in my country, only two things lead towards any real change - 1)protests and 2)money. Either I should put in the effort to organize people and protest, or I should spend money trying to influence decision makers. Since I suck at the first and lack in the second, I decided to be apathetic towards everything political.
I've started doing just that and it has had great impact on my mental health. I don't feel any less prepared to make an impact when the time comes (elections, sporadic talks with friends and family).
Should I be more engaged? Surely. But I just look at all of it and think it's a necessary evil and I'm happy other people feel more inclined to participate heavily. I just don't have the mental skills to keep up and be sane.
But it's a mix of filtering actual facts from newspaper articles on both sides of the spectrum (they usually carry very little information and mostly repeat words to fill up screen space), then check a few respected journalists publishing analysis after a few weeks (again, from left/right). They will be biased, like anything, but there's a kernel of Truth even when I disagree. So that's useful for informing my thoughts.
I have noticed this too when coming back from a month long trip. Usually nothing important has changed. I would argue that by checking once a month you get a better idea of the big picture because you deal less with the noise. At my company they have CNN playing at lunch time and during that hour almost nothing important gets transmitted. It's just endless discussion about the same topics.
I highly recommend Steven Pinker's "Enlightenment Now" (2018) as a cure against the doomsayers.
Every new day is the greatest day in the history of human civilization. One wouldn't think that though looking at any MSM homepage.
I understand the sentiment that news can make you depressed, but reading the news can also spur people to act positively in a multitude of ways.
When a natural disaster strikes and the news is filled with stories of anguish and despair in the aftermath, people donate to charities because of the news reports they've seen.
Imagine if we never read the news because such stories were too depressing?
Imagine if this young student had never seen a harrowing news report about the Syrian war?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29900968
News that I actually care about is the stuff I learn by talking to people in person. It's also a lot less likely to be negative news. Then, once it's been established that I care about it, I'll do research about it - whether that's talking to friends about personal news, or reading online about a new bill that would affect people I care about.
Sadly most news has become a newsfeed. CNN, Fox, etc are all newsfeeds-breaking news! new update! new notification! here are some pundits talking about it.
The reality is we need news-we don't need a 24/7 news cycle.
http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/
Basically: Less news, more books.
As of the end of last year, I stopped engaging in mainstream social media. So much better.
I still keep a Facebook account for Messenger and Events, but don't post, read timelines, or participate.
Not only do I have more time to read books and learn new things -- made pita bread from scratch for the first time this week -- but I am in general, notably happier and more focused.
I suspect that information hygiene is going to be one of the great underrated skills of the digital age.
Hacker News is an exception that I indulge in maybe once a week or two -- today's the day! -- as most of what ends up on here is worthwhile, and the moderation team has done an excellent job of keeping the signal-to-noise ratio high.
Quora also tends to be good, between Be Nice Be Respectful (BNBR), and the Real Name policy, although they recently went downhill by interleaving the standard cesspool that is mainstream news in the Quora feed.
Reddit... there are a few gold nuggets (/r/writingprompts), but overall it's just a crapfest.
He is the physical manifestation of "what if someone indulged the news-appetite of a whole population every day."
What a coincidence.
I've got rid of all my social media other than twitter and linkedin which I use for work. Facebook I only use for messenger. I check reddit once or twice a day but rarely do I scroll past the first page. My overall mental health is much better. I feel a little bit of sadness when I see friends who HAVE to check their phones (social media) after being without it for a hour. It's great in moderation but I think most people get too sucked in.
I'm trying to get myself more organized and to instead focus on slightly longer projects with determined goals, but I really have a hard time breaking my habits of information ingestion. In many ways the internet has helped me grow intellectually so much, but simultaneously I feel like I lose any sense of present and physical presense. And it's just so hard for me to focus and do the mundane things that I find uninteresting.
I think I'll post this and then close out HN for a bit. Traveling for the weekend so maybe I can sucessfully limit myself to only actually necessary internet usage and avoid any consumption of unimportant crap. We'll just have to see...
This is the key. If you start posting it becomes a waiting game for the conversation to begin. I feel the need to monitor and wait for responses.
It's fun but obviously mentally taxing. An online conversation keeps me constantly engaged but distracts me heavily from other things. It's extremely hard for me to not want to openly opine and share on the various social networks about subjects I care about.
I get that stopping watching movies and TV would improve your mood, but I love how music makes me feel and I think (though haven’t tested) that if I stopped listening to music id be a little less jolly.
As a citizen it's a duty to be well informed so we can participate in democracy efficiently (Quoting Greek philosophers here).
A better suggestion is to focus on higher quality news sources: I'd recommend Reuters (try the iOS app) and the Economist, and Channel 4 News in the UK.
There are plenty of people undermining democracy while being well aware of what's happening around them. Moot point.
Seeking happiness is a trap in itself though. This has been extensively discussed by centuries of philosophers. Happiness is transitory and can never be sustained.
Maybe it requires the context of your first sentence about seeking happiness.
For myself, I would not say I seek it, but that I chose it. I feel I've been generally happy nearly always. Sure, there have been stresses, losses, tragedies, tears, and such. There have been extended periods of feelings of inadequacy and of being trapped. Yet, even through all such events and periods, I'd say I tend to be happy. And the last major part of a decade has been the most fulfilling and blessed part of my life yet. Sure, it could come crashing down. Or it could get even better! I chose to be happy with where I have been, where I am at, and look forward to where I'll go.
There's apparently a fine line between "not ardently following the news" and "not paying attention at all."
There is a reason that news is like this. Adam Curtis and Oh Dearism is a good watch.
1: https://www.slow-journalism.com/