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SoylentNews is people

posted by on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the putting-ourselves-out-of-business dept.

This story might be helpful to those tearing their hair out about the news lately:

I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society.

But I still encounter people who balk at the possibility of a smart, engaged adult quitting the daily news.
...
A few things you might notice, if you take a break:

1) You feel better

A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in mood. News junkies will say it's because you've stuck your head in the sand.

But that assumes the news is the equivalent of having your head out in the fresh, clear air. They don't realize that what you can glean about the world from the news isn't even close to a representative sample of what is happening in the world.
...
2) You were never actually accomplishing anything by watching the news

If you ask someone what they accomplish by watching the news, you'll hear vague notions like, "It's our civic duty to stay informed!" or "I need to know what's going on in the world," or "We can't just ignore these issues," none of which answer the question.
...
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. And that's to say nothing of the opportunity cost. Imagine if you spent that time learning a language, or reading books and essays about some of the issues they mention on the news.

Read on for the rest of the list.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:35PM

    by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:35PM (#440864) Journal

    It's about watching TV news - a type of journalism so low that only clickbait can compete in terribleness. Reading news - which is what you are doing here on soylentnews.org - is fine. The article itself doesn't mention anything about newspaper, which are a far better source IMO, and may be available online. A commenter does mention that getting your news only from social media is as bad (actually probably worse) as getting it from TV.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:48PM (#440878)

    username does not check out

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:44PM

      by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:44PM (#440997) Journal

      In our current post-factual reality, nothing needs to check out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:01AM

    by davester666 (155) on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:01AM (#441553)

    Yeah, I stopped watching tv news regularly after the 9/11 news cycle (which was months long). It's just too much of "we start with the 5 worst things that have happened on this planet".

    When news started, it was similar, just "these are the 5 worst things that happened in this city/town", then it expanded to "in this state", then "in this country" and now "anywhere". And every day, somewhere, a bunch of people are having a really bad day.