The radio thing is interesting but this is the first I am hearing of this quake, so here is a Reuters article with basic facts. Thousands of lives lost. A serious tragedy.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/major-earthquake-s...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/major-earthquake-s...
You just... stop caring. The only two good reasons to pay attention to news are if it affects you in some way, or if you can do anything about it. The vast majority of news is in neither group.
That's the first pass. From there, you adjust your definition of "affects you". I'm in the US, for example, and our government does plenty of bad things I do not approve of. But most of them, even the ones that ostensibly should affect me, don't actually noticeably change anything in my life. After a while, it all blurs into "my team scored a point" or "the other team scored a point".
Is this privileged? Of course. But it's also a requirement for my mental health. Paying attention to it wouldn't even improve anything for the people who are suffering, so there's not even any sort of utilitarian tradeoff. It would just be making my life worse for no reason, so I don't.
Timothy Snyder half-jokingly asks whether Russia is even a country. Sure, it exists as a state (for example it can wage a war, ineptly but still), however the civil society is nearly entirely demolished. It wasn't always so.
- it affects you in some way
and
- you can do something about it
I'll admit to sometimes taking this too far and continuing to ignore things that I probably shouldn't. Eventually, someone mentions the actually important things to me, so I continue to get away with it.
Idk one thing I do not ever do is open a website like CNN or NYT and read the front page. Please don't misunderstand that statement of fact as a judgement, but you asked about my media habits so I am sharing that. I will hear about major news events, as this very post makes clear. It seems I am hearing about this major earthquake in Turkey 14 hours or so after it happened... which seems fine. There is nothing I can do.
I tend to get news from youtube sources (not major outlets though) and these creators take a day or two to produce their videos. Sometimes I listen to Democracy Now or the KPFA evening news (available online), but I do not regularly consume that kind of thing. I am doing as much as I can to help the world with my little nonprofit thing. I learn about things like the police killing in Memphis police killing, the situation with the police training center outside of Georgia, and various foolish things politicians do. But I don't have much appetite for the firehose of details that come out of major news outlets.
You're not the only one. I like only occupying my mind with stuff that affects me and I can do something about. Or things I can create.
I see more and more people around me doing the same by the way. A lot more since the pandemic, I think everyone got a bit fed up with bad news every day and after it was over started focusing more on the real life they'd been missing out on.
It's funny because when I was young everyone would sit down for the 8 o'clock news every day and most would read the paper in the morning. Now news is everywhere and I consume less of it than back then.
I personally take a great interest in the challenges my local community faces because I can be directly and verifiably helpful.
The easiest way to disengage is to humbly admit that you’re not important enough to matter very much to almost any issue on that stage, and that the people who do matter probably spend less time soaking up coverage about it than you do.
If you want to be anxious or have enthralling dinner party conversations about big events, by all means keep up your hobby. There’s sincerely nothing any more wrong with it than any other idle hobby.
But if you think the news is important and that your attention is a resource to invest in things that matter, look to the news from your family, your friends, and your community.
It's not that I don't care. (I do.) I just read everything at a digest at the end of the day. Most news doesn't require a real-time response. Trying to stay on top of everything happening, as it happens 24x7, just leads to emotional exhaustion.
If it's not something I have direct control over, I don't need a real-time feed of it. The news will still be there to read in the evening when I get home.
Grab the Sunday paper if you want to be periodically checked in. I think I'd be happier if I did this. I don't need to read the nyt opinion section every day, or what lie some congressman from New York just told.
I need to fold my clothes and schedule my vacation and research for work.
I read the newspaper once a day in the morning, HN a couple of times during the day, that's it.
No other news or social media at all. I get a lot done. I recognize this lifestyle isn't for everyone.
The only exception I can think of is Japan. It seems everyone is aware of Japan earthquakes/Tsunamis.
It is possible i am misremembering, but it could have been a fore-shock, as well.
Note: i don't watch fediverse or any social network enough to have seen any other reporting or whatever on this. My phone spammed me about it, the first such notification i've received this year, and i live in a Gulf state in the US.
I generally just don't care enough about what happens in the world anymore, though this particular quake is really terrible of course. But there's nothing I can do about it.
Just once a day or so I might check the local newspaper website, for things that might affect me. Which is where I heard about it because something this big will make the front page even there.
But generally I don't miss the world news at all, I don't feel FOMO or less informed. I'm not a boring person either IMO, I just like being active in tech and the creative (maker) community, with things I can actually influence. I'm very interested in people I meet. It's more about taking control of information.
I do the same with instant messaging. I can be quite active but only on my terms. All my group chats are muted, and all but the most important people too. I'll see your messages eventually but when it suits me. If it was urgent you'd have called anyway.
It's good to know about this band assignment though as I'm also a HAM operator. But I don't use the 10m band that this frequency is on anyway.
Staying informed is good, but there are relatively small number of things that need a reaction in real-time. Eventual consistency is sufficient, and frees cognitive cycles for things I have immediate influence over.