It’s not a hard ban. I’ll click a link someone sends me, not that people do that. I’ll walk past my partner’s iPad and look over her shoulder. Occasionally I’ll pick up a print edition of the Economist.
But, by and large, I don’t ’read the news’. I can only recommend it. ‘The news’ as published on the majority of sites is mostly crap you don’t care about. Even the reputable sites. And then when it’s some big event that you are supposed to care about, that just makes you sad/angry/whatever.
People say that I’m absolving myself of my responsibility to society. Nah. I vote (I have to, I’m Australian). My vote hasn’t changed in 20 years, nothing I read is going to do that now. And I wasn’t politically active before, so that hasn’t changed.
Just stop reading the news.