How the News Took over Reality

> We marinate in the news. We may be familiar with the headlines before we have exchanged a word with another human in the morning; we kill time on the bus or in queues by checking Twitter, only to find ourselves plunged into the dramas of presidential politics or humanitarian emergencies. By one estimate, 70% of us take our news-delivery devices to bed with us at night.

Some people do this. And I'm guilty of having been one of them. But I realized that the constant negative news cycle started to shape my outlook on the world around me.

Earlier this year I decided that the cycle of indulging in consumption of (usually negative) news, worrying about it, and then repeating is a waste of time and probably takes away from who I am rather than adding anything of real value. I don't check Twitter, I trying to avoid Facebook. I don't even watch my favorite late night talk show hosts (sorry Colbert). I've replaced them with audiobooks and podcasts.

I am significantly happier for it. And minor anxieties I had that were unrelated to current events seem to have gone away too.

Twice, now, I've written a story--and deleted--about local TV news people I'm close to compared to when I worked in TV news in the early 1970s. There is no comparison and I wish I could leave what I wrote here.

Back then, the TV news reporters were former newspaper reporters who spent days digging political underhandedness. I once had a TV reporter call me, recently, cause someone referred her saying I had knowledge of a topic. Misunderstanding what she asked, I called back 30 minutes later I did have the information she needed but she said it was too late and they weren't going to run the story.

A few days ago, a news producer was reviewing dog toys.

It might help if filtering were better in more places.

On YouTube, I mostly see accordion videos and that's the way I like it. On Twitter, even if I follow people who don't talk about politics, they will "like" other people's tweets that then show up in my feed.

On Facebook, there should be a way to turn off reshares for someone you're friends with.

Judging by the author's article history, there is good money to be made in playing on other people's insecurities.

We should look at articles like this for what it is: the 2010s version of self-help. And as with most self-help, the author is more interested in heightening awareness of the things that are 'holding you back' than providing any meaningful solution.

How do you solve that dilemma between disconnecting from news because it can make you happier and less stressed and disconnecting from news because you're privileged to do so? the parts of the article about the "need" to stay aware of what's happening at the very least certainly ring true for me.