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How much should I care about news? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/chat@beehaw.org

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I read this article recently and I was just thinking about my news consumption and how much I want to be affected by it.

I feel like it is important because shit is going on in the world however I usually don't change my habits much over it.

I also think that there should be a middle ground somewhere but I can't think of it so if anyone of you have ideas please share them.

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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I had to teach myself last year that you can be an informed voter and also not constantly not watch the news. With Ukraine I realized I was constantly in a rolling panic attack and I couldn't get out of it. The news was sensationalized so much. (Not downplaying the events, but they also rolled out experts who talked about how likely nuclear annihilation was and I was not handling that well). I realized it was all to keep me glued to my screen and clicking, and that made me kind of disgusted with them. Here's a war going on with actual people affected, and they're worried about how many clicks they're getting.

I stay informed, I know the issues, but that doesn't mean I need to be subscribed to /c/news and have a constant feed. I vote in every election, and if there's something I don't know I look it up. But I don't need it daily.

[–] Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do you think there is a distinction between passive and active news consumption?

Like reading news to inform yourself on a decision vs just passively reading the news?

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 points 11 months ago

For me, definitely. I'll read the news before an election but even then it's pretty targeted.

I realized that I trip up with anxiety with world and national news because there's nothing I can do. Literally beyond voting there's really no change I can make, so I don't need to stay updated like I can do that.

Even our grandfather's only had a daily newspaper to stay up to date. We humans just aren't meant to consume that much, there's no way our tiny soup brains can consume all of that and we stay mentally healthy

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

experts who talked about how likely nuclear annihilation was

If it helps, the actual likelihood is about 0%. There are not enough nukes to kill even 99% of the current world population, much less a 100%... they could be built, but it makes no sense, for now.

Unless you live in Russia. They're all talk about nuclear strikes, but in reality Russia is the one who doesn't seem to have effective anti-ICBM measures.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 points 11 months ago

My wife put it to me well.

On the off chance that the world doesn't end this week, let's go ahead and keep living our lives

It was a joke but it stuck with me. Yeah it could all end. History says it won't though. There are some real threats out there, but for my own measley self I should keep planning on tomorrow