Of course it’s not an explicit expectation, but the news cycle is dominated by a mix of 24/7 news and daily summaries. It’s rare that I see weekly, bi-weekly, monthly summaries. I’m thinking, is there really that much that can happen in a day and that warrants our attention? Most news are clickbait focused on the negative, making us feel depressed and feeds our negative emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the news actively contributes to the mental health crisis.
At the same time I think it can be of importance to have some understanding on what’s going on in one’s local area, one’s country and in the world. For me I think a weekly summary would be good balance, but those are weirdly hard to find. What are your thoughts?
I absolutely don’t do that, I have curated my lemmy home page to avoid politics as much as possible too, it’s mostly just people wallowing in misery complaining and not doing anything anyway, it’s a waste of time.
That seems like a very healthy habit, but adding some broccoli to your diet wouldn’t hurt. You know, that bitter green stuff with a funny texture that you just slather orange cheese over and pretend it’s close enough. You know it’d be good for you, right in the electorals
I have no idea if that second part is some sort of meme reference or what
No, i was standing on a chair balanced on a table, reaching for my kids balloon with tongs and overbalanced. You’re just the ambulance siren for my stretch at an analogy. It’s done. Can’t be saved
You should make yourself do things that make you uncomfortable because it’s good for you.
That’s impossible, everything is political
Existence is political. If you don’t pay attention to politics, you’re defenseless.
I don’t like being punched in the face, so I do my best to ignore when my bully is running towards me so I don’t have to think about being punched in the face
Most aren’t expected to, unless it’s your job like Kimmel, SNL, Stewart, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, etc
It’s just easier to find new content reading material than today’s market in fiction which is disappointingly awful of late.
You are 100% correct, negative news has a greater impact on people than positive: https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf
Media sites know this, and use it to drive engagement:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01538-4
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/social-media-facebook-twitter-politics-b1870628.html
And so, negative headlines are getting worse: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276367
But negative news is addictive and psychologically damaging: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news
So it’s important to try and stay positive:
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/benefits-of-good-news
If you want a break from the constant negativity, here are some sites that report specifically on positive news:
Remember, realistic optimism is important and, unlike what some might have you believe, is not the same as blissful ignorance or ‘burying your head in the sand’: https://www.learning-mind.com/realistic-optimism-blind-positivity/
https://www.centreforoptimism.com/realisticoptimism
And doesn’t mean you must stay uninformed on current affairs: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/how-to-stop-doom-scrolling
https://goodable.co/blog/tips-for-balancing-positive-and-negative-news/
Some world news summaries can be found here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-37067259
https://www.economist.com/the-world-this-week
Good comment, saving the good news sources
Most of it doesn’t matter, so summaries aren’t of much use. You do occasionally get the year in review compilations.
Very important stuff is going to stay relevant, in the new cycle, in your community social circle, for a long period of time. So you’ll be kept abreast of it that way
Not that you’re looking for recommendations, but Delayed Gratification magazine may be close to what you’re looking for!
https://www.slow-journalism.com/This looks really great. How’s the quality of the journalism? And what political leaning do they have?
I don’t think we are. I mean in the old times, newspapers used to be published once a day. And you’d have the evening news on TV. And it kind of aligns with daily rituals. You can read it with your morning ciffee, or grab it on your way to work…
These days you can read news whenever you want. And they’re there almost immediately. Plus a lot of people use social media to share news articles. So it doesn’t really follow any cycle.
Speaking more generally, people like to stay in the loop. Things are most interesting when they just happened, not 20 days later… And attention works in a strange way in the age if the internet anyways… You’re always available, or someplace else. Notifications pop up all day. And we check our phone like 200 times a day to check on arbitrary things.
I’d say read a magazine, if you want bi-weekly or monthly updates. The articles in there are more nuanced and interesting anyways. And magazines are a thing and kind of made for that.
That’s an illusion. Believe it or not if you ignore the “news” it goes away. Most “news” isn’t worth your time anyway and will just make you feel helpless. The best way to get the news is to be selective with what you consume. E.g. once in a while listen to the BBC news report on the radio, sub to independent journalists (channel 5 w\ Andrew Callahan, Caspian report. YT). If there’s an issue you actually care about that you heard from the news, do what you can and not what you can’t.
That’s an illusion. Believe it or not if you ignore the “news” it goes away.
Some news are irrelevent, I do agree with that.
But not all are.
Example:
“Hurricane is on its way to [Your Area]” probably shouldn’t be ignored.
That’s one of the reasons I’m subscribed to a weekly magazine.
Which one?
A small French protestant weekly called Réforme. I doubt the title in itself is relevant for you, but the periodicity is just right to have fresh news but with hindsight.
Why are we expected to keep up with the news on a daily basis?
If it is not faster? What’s the lifespan of any buzz news, nowadays? 15, 30 minutes? 1h?
That being said, we may be expected to do that and many people may even be willing to do it, aka gobbing news all day long, but we’re not supposed to do that. At least, not if we want
to have some understanding on what’s going on in one’s local area, one’s country and in the world.
Understanding takes times (to read more, to hear various point of views) and effort (to conciliate those various view points we hear/read, and to try to understand it (aka make up our own personal opinion) instead of merely reacting emotionally to it.
Time and efforts are two things media certainly don’t want us to practice because it will cost them a lot of money and probably, for a majority of them, their job too. Because:
- Readers/listeners/viewers that are used to do efforts on their own (instead of being spoon-fed) will also expect better quality news (instead of the actual trash that’s falsely labelled as news) in order to be satisfied. It happens that better content does cost more money to produce than trash content (it requires more work, more time and smarter people, none of those being free or AI-replaceable).
- In depth understanding of better content also requires more time to understand it. Which mean people will consume less news articles/videos/whatever and that news outlets will sell less ads.
Too bad, those medias and the army of people working there need to sell as many ads as they can in order to pay for their salaries, they need us to be as stupid as we can be so we will swallow whatever cheap turd they can produce without even blinking an eye. We may even ask for more.
It’s all about choice.
Our choice as individuals, to waste our time on such shit content or to spend it on better content, and our choice as a society, deciding what we value more between a better education and information (which takes a lot of work, takes time, and cost more) or being raised as braindead morons that will happily clap hands everytime they’re fed whatever the latest buzz-turd is so dumb that even the stupidest AI can write it in mere seconds?
Most news are clickbait focused on the negative, making us feel depressed and feeds our negative emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the news actively contributes to the mental health crisis.
Most news can also not be that. It’s a choice. Not an easy choice, but a choice nonetheless.
The news I read (I have quit watching TV in the early 00s when I realized what a trash can it was morphing into) are not like that, or barely are. But it does cost me money and time to make them not be clickbait trash. Which is sad since many people can’t afford one or the other, if not both. While other people simply don’t want to be bothered.
What are your thoughts?
There are still great news papers out there, and websites, coming from all political ‘trends’… Which incidentally is another of our serious weaknesses, one that is also over-exploited by trash media: our allergy to anything that would not perfectly reflect our ‘values’, aka if a news outlet is not blue, red, green, grey, pink, whatever our ‘color’ is then it’s worthless. It is not. But, here again, realizing that there a re great news outlet even in the ‘facing camp’ will take time and efforts (to read them and to spot the few that aren’t trash).
I get my news from people on TikTok that do it every week as a round up instead of the shitty corporate owned 24/7 kind.
Mostly seeing what laws are/will take away my ability to exist as a person and all rights associated with it.
Don’t want to be sent to slavery, err they call it prison now right?
Basically getting the upper hand in case I’m not allowed to go to certain places or exist in certain spaces.
More of a survival thing then anything else really.
You think TikTok is better than mainstream media for news?
From experience it is, mainstream Media always is about media and attention and money and control.
TikTok have people who are just people who are reporting what there finding for news to inform others, not for money, not fo views, but because they genuinely want to inform people.
It’s hard to do that on American platforms because anything they don’t like they censored heavily. Yes TikTok does too but not that extent
I definitely don’t. Better for my mental health.
Personally I read the news daily because it’s one of a few things that keeps updating in real time, with a story line tying it together. Like, the events each day relate to yesterday, and it keeps developing in real time so there’s that discount aspect to checking it. That’s the need that it fulfills to me. I’d like to get off the News but I haven’t found anything else like this yet. Reddit/Lemmy doesn’t do
Whose expectations? Who says we have to pay them any mind?Unless their name is on the deed, or they pay me wages, I don’t much care what they expect.
I know someone who only learned Biden had dropped out upon seeing his name was not on the (mail-in) ballot. I was a little jealous.
I follow current events, but I strive to filter out politics beyond the very top level headlines.
We’re social creatures. We need things to talk about so we seek out info on shared interests. “The news” has the added benefit of feeding into a self belief about being civic minded person.
I think it’s ok to have an area of study be a hobby, but if you want to be an activist find something you can actually engage in. If you can’t create real value on the thing. Swing a hammer, shovel, paint, move goods, create program, or one degree away helping coordinate people actually doing that, don’t worry about it. It’s a time suck, and we all have better things to actually do.
The news is full of time sucks like that. Just worrying things you have no responsibility or possible action to deal with. It’s worth occasionally glances to see if there is an interesting hobby you want to pick up or if there a cause you want to engage in, but if your good there I wouldn’t bother.
I think you’re just describing market forces. Good recaps are harder to write. You’re describing cheap news. If we want proper news, we need to subsidize it.
