Why You Should Stop Watching the News - and what you should do instead
Want someone else to think for you? Watch the news.
Want to be distracted? Watch the news.
Want something to get mad about? Watch the news.
A recent passage in The Daily Stoic discussed the negative impact of hearing bad news – something like a tsunami destroying a village, or a terrorist attack in another country.
These events are terrible, said the passage, and they consume our attention, sympathy, and serenity.
But to what end?
Aside from feeling bad for the victims –and worrying the same thing might happen to you – you’re powerless to make a positive impact. Hearing the news is merely a distraction.
“But,” you might argue, “everything on the news doesn’t revolve around tragedies. I need to know what’s going on in the world!”
Do you really?
When was the last time you watched the news and thought, “thank God I saw that. Let me go take action.”?
I’ll answer for you: probably never.
If that’s the case, what’re you actually getting from the news? Aggravated? Wound up? Certainly not informed about anything important.
Most of the time, watching the news is as useful as watching The Jersey Shore. You’re watching it to turn off your brain and mainline outrage.
It’s fine if you want to spend your free time watching the news. I’m not telling you to shut it off forever. But don’t fool yourself – watching the news is a leisure activity, not a productive pursuit.
I used to tune in almost every night. I would watch financial news then flip to one of the major networks and have the talking heads playing in the background the rest of the evening.
But sometime during the 2016 election cycle, I noticed I was always wound up about something I saw on Fox News or CNN. So I turned it off and watched my well-being increase tremendously.
I never sit down to watch the news anymore. It’s never on in my apartment (I don’t even have cable). I rarely read news websites, and I don’t listen to talk shows. And I haven’t seen one negative consequence in more than two years!
If you decide to stop watching the news,you’ll have a lot of free time. Here are four information sources that are a productive use of your time and won’t send your blood pressure skyrocketing.
1. Biographies
For books to remain in print, they have to sell copies. To continuously sell copies of something that doesn’t change, that thing has to be pretty damn good.
Where the daily news will overwhelm you with pointless details – like the president’s crazy tweets, or what the queen wore to the royal wedding –biographies don’t include this fluff.
They simply can’t include everything, and that is to the reader’s benefit.
Pick a historical figure you want to learn about and read his or her biography. It could be a president (or first lady), a business icon, an athlete – basically anyone you find interesting.
Two of my favorite biographies were Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, and Titan by Ron Chernow.
Important information you learn from biographies include:
The subject’s life story.
What challenges that person faced and how he/she overcame those challenges. And
Historical context. It’s hard to tell a story about a person without describing what was happening in the world at that time.
This information is broadly applicable. You will face challenges in life. Knowing how a successful person approached similar challenges is a useful tool.
Lessons from history can also be broadly applied to present events. Knowing how different situations developed(elections, wars, economic downturns, public health issues, technology development, etc.) helps you to make better informed decisions today. And it’soften more interesting to read about historical events as they applied to a specific person.
If you swap one hour of news every night for one hour of biography reading, you’ll read a lot of biographies in a year. And you won’t experience the feeling of outrage induced by Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow.
2. Documentaries
If you want to spend your evening watching TV, replacing the news with a documentary is always a good choice.
Where a one-hour news program will cover ten different topics, a documentary usually dives deeper into one.
Six minutes spent on ten unique subjects means you probably didn’t learn anything. But one hour of focused attention on a single subject means you’ll probably walk away with some useful information.
More so than a biography, documentaries can be controversial and may aggravate you. But they differ from the news in that you have a decent idea of what you’re getting before you press play.
You can pass on the documentaries that will boil your blood. But the news shoots aggravation in rapid fire, often too quick for you to dodge.
You might still be spending your evening in front of the tube, but watching a documentary could help you:
Plan your next vacation. Check out Free Solo or the Ken Burns series on the US National Parks.
Learn how to eat healthier. Check out Fed Up or That Sugar Film.
Learn about history or any new topic. Check out The Fog of War or Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
Learning about new topics increases your situational adaptability - it’s more conversation ammo at your next social event.
Hearing other people's stories increases your intellectual humility – a quality that makes the world a better place.
Both adaptability and intellectual humility are crucial for self-improvement. Neither of those qualities are developed by watching the news.
3. Conversation
Many of my conversations drift toward current events. I use these conversations as a funnel to focus my time on important issues.
Normal people won’t give you a rundown of everything they heard on Fox News or CNN.
They’ll tell you the most important thing.
If you refrain from watching the news, you can effectively use everyone else as your current events bullshit filter.
Then you can do some focused (hopefully objective) research on the topics they mention and decide if it warrants further attention, and maybe eventually an opinion.
If there’s one thing that too many of us forget, it’s that you aren’t required to have an opinion. It’s perfectly fine to say, “I don’t know enough about it, and I really don’t care to.”
4. Your Local Newspaper
Okay I admit this is flirting with the line, but here’s what I recommend.
Once a week – probably on Saturday or Sunday – pick up a copy of your local newspaper.
Skip past anything related to world or national news (for reasons listed above).Go straight to the articles that pertain to your community.
Maybe a developer is proposing building a subdivision that will disrupt the local ecosystem. This might outrage you, but the difference is you can do something about it.
By reading the article, you can learn the date, time, and location of the town council meeting to discuss the issue, and you can attend. It’s outrage with a purpose, not outrage for the sake of outrage.
Or maybe you find an article about a local family who lost their house in a fire. What a terrible disaster this is, and it probably pains your heart. But it's different from hearing about the tsunami destroying a village thousands of miles away.
The article will probably tell you how to help. It might tell you where to drop off clothing or toys for the family. It might even tell you who the family is, giving you the opportunity to make them a dinner or offer them a place to stay.
Local news can capture the essence of what news should be – informative, actionable, and brief. It should be a jolt of useful information, not a constant drip of chaos.
Consume thoughtfully
All news isn’t useless. All news doesn’t breed anger and hate. But the constant news cycle enabled and perpetuated by technology requires a bull shit filter that even a police interrogator may lack.
The purpose of consuming information is to give you something to act upon – whether those are concrete instructions or simply a framework for making future decisions.
The news as it stands doesn’t check that box. Get your information elsewhere. Move away from the conscious unconscious.
