"Quitting" the News

I stopped watching news channels on TV a long while back. Then the newspaper was stopped in Covid times; and we never renewed it. So my source of news are the websites of various news publications.

 

This blogger named David Cain wrote about his experience of “quitting the news”. Like me, by that he only means news channels and Internet newscasts, not all of journalism. I could relate to most things he wrote of.

 

First, he says, your mood improves:

“The idea that you can get a meaningful sense of the “state of the world” by watching the news is absurd… What appears is whatever sells, and what sells is fear, and contempt for other groups of people.”

 

Second, you realize that watching the news didn’t really benefit you in any way:

“A month after you’ve quit the news, it’s hard to name anything useful that’s been lost. It becomes clear that those years of news-watching amounted to virtually nothing in terms of improvement to your quality of life, lasting knowledge, or your ability to help others.”

 

It only led to an illusion that you understood current topics.

“There is an extraordinary gulf between having a functional understanding of an issue, and the cursory glance you get from the news… It’s kind of hilarious how willing people are to speak boldly on issues they’ve known about for all of three hours.”

 

If you read anything else instead, you realize something. Reading a book on any topic gives you some depth of understanding. The news on the other hand?

“The news provides information in infinite volume but very limited depth, and it’s clearly meant to agitate us more than educate us.”

 

The last benefit he cites is something we tend to do unconsciously:

“News is all about injustice and catastrophe… Watching disasters unfold, even while we do nothing, at least feels a little more compassionate than switching off… We can remain uninvolved without feeling uninvolved.”

 

So go ahead and quit the news (channels).

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