Of course it’s not an explicit expectation, but the news cycle is dominated by a mix of 24/7 news and daily summaries. It’s rare that I see weekly, bi-weekly, monthly summaries. I’m thinking, is there really that much that can happen in a day and that warrants our attention? Most news are clickbait focused on the negative, making us feel depressed and feeds our negative emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the news actively contributes to the mental health crisis.
At the same time I think it can be of importance to have some understanding on what’s going on in one’s local area, one’s country and in the world. For me I think a weekly summary would be good balance, but those are weirdly hard to find. What are your thoughts?
Here’s my idea of how we should keep ahead of news, in doing this I have made an algorithm for me that goes across media platforms which allows me to spend less time digesting media and having more go across my eyes and more high quality.
https://blog.machinations.space/independent-media-consumption/
No, just ignore the news. Maybe skim though the headlines if you are really curious.
Only thing you have to worry about is if the headline say stuff like:
“Hurricane/Tsunami (or other disasters) is imminent”
“Our country is being invaded”
“Martial law has been invoked”
Stuff like “Leader says stupid thing” is not worth your attention, don’t bother reading such articles.
That’s an illusion. Believe it or not if you ignore the “news” it goes away. Most “news” isn’t worth your time anyway and will just make you feel helpless. The best way to get the news is to be selective with what you consume. E.g. once in a while listen to the BBC news report on the radio, sub to independent journalists (channel 5 w\ Andrew Callahan, Caspian report. YT). If there’s an issue you actually care about that you heard from the news, do what you can and not what you can’t.
That’s an illusion. Believe it or not if you ignore the “news” it goes away.
Some news are irrelevent, I do agree with that.
But not all are.
Example:
“Hurricane is on its way to [Your Area]” probably shouldn’t be ignored.
For the entire time I’ve been alive, we have been a supply-side economics country. Which means that rather than companies creating products based upon the needs of the people and selling them, much or perhaps most of the economy is oriented toward making you want (largely) unnecessary things that companies have created.
The news media serves this economic structure in a few different ways:
- It notifies you of new products – essentially acting as the marketing arm of the companies – to keep the economy humming along and people consuming things.
- It wants you to consume its main, likely unnecessary product (i.e. 24/7, up-to-the-second news) in order to both assist the above goal of having you consume that marketing, and because it itself is a supply-side economic product.
- It relays at every possible opportunity the message that not keeping up with the news will result in you missing out on important things, or might result in potential disaster.
It is often the news organizations themselves – and the people who act as boosters for them either unintentionally or intentionally – that pretend that you have some personal responsibility to consume every bit of news about every flatulent (be it government, celebrity, or corporate) that opened their mouth today.
You’re expected to keep your head in the sand, work for a fraction of the value of your labor until you die, too late for you to realize your life has been stolen.
People who want to know what the fuck is happening around them have to read the news and learn about the world in order to do that.
Whose expectations? Who says we have to pay them any mind?Unless their name is on the deed, or they pay me wages, I don’t much care what they expect.
I know someone who only learned Biden had dropped out upon seeing his name was not on the (mail-in) ballot. I was a little jealous.
I follow current events, but I strive to filter out politics beyond the very top level headlines.
I absolutely don’t do that, I have curated my lemmy home page to avoid politics as much as possible too, it’s mostly just people wallowing in misery complaining and not doing anything anyway, it’s a waste of time.
That seems like a very healthy habit, but adding some broccoli to your diet wouldn’t hurt. You know, that bitter green stuff with a funny texture that you just slather orange cheese over and pretend it’s close enough. You know it’d be good for you, right in the electorals
I have no idea if that second part is some sort of meme reference or what
You should make yourself do things that make you uncomfortable because it’s good for you.
No, i was standing on a chair balanced on a table, reaching for my kids balloon with tongs and overbalanced. You’re just the ambulance siren for my stretch at an analogy. It’s done. Can’t be saved
That’s impossible, everything is political
Existence is political. If you don’t pay attention to politics, you’re defenseless.
I don’t like being punched in the face, so I do my best to ignore when my bully is running towards me so I don’t have to think about being punched in the face
You have identified a gap in the news information market. Be the change you want to see instead of asking random people on the internet if they agree with you, lest they steal your initiative.
I don’t think it’s a social expectation. It’s more of an outcome of the interaction between the current societal system and technology. There are likely several systems we can develop and implement to reduce the overwhelming amount of info we need to consume on a regular basis, but as with any social system, changing things takes power away from the ones in power.
On a good note, one reason your expected to be updated on news is that you have a say in the political system. If you didn’t have any power in the political system, then not only would you not be expected to stay updated on news, but you would be prevented from it.
The elites want us to be tired all the time. It’s how they won the battle for the internet.
it’s how they won’t the battle for the internet
It’s how they won all status quo benefits to them. They also know status quo changes and why they put so much energy, effort, influence and time into continuing to try to make things worse so the likelihood of large-scale change decreases.
However, at a certain point, history shows people will revolt. The question is when, and how much of the horrific foundation that has been laid with people used to it can be ripped up before our short attention slams turn back to other interests?
The problem with that reasoning is everyone is waiting for someone else to start the revolution
I didn’t advocate for a slow response, history shows people just like to boil like frogs as were very adaptable, for good and bad. Id love it if swift, collective action were our norm.
I think you’re just describing market forces. Good recaps are harder to write. You’re describing cheap news. If we want proper news, we need to subsidize it.
We’re social creatures. We need things to talk about so we seek out info on shared interests. “The news” has the added benefit of feeding into a self belief about being civic minded person.
I think it’s ok to have an area of study be a hobby, but if you want to be an activist find something you can actually engage in. If you can’t create real value on the thing. Swing a hammer, shovel, paint, move goods, create program, or one degree away helping coordinate people actually doing that, don’t worry about it. It’s a time suck, and we all have better things to actually do.
The news is full of time sucks like that. Just worrying things you have no responsibility or possible action to deal with. It’s worth occasionally glances to see if there is an interesting hobby you want to pick up or if there a cause you want to engage in, but if your good there I wouldn’t bother.
I definitely don’t. Better for my mental health.
Personally I read the news daily because it’s one of a few things that keeps updating in real time, with a story line tying it together. Like, the events each day relate to yesterday, and it keeps developing in real time so there’s that discount aspect to checking it. That’s the need that it fulfills to me. I’d like to get off the News but I haven’t found anything else like this yet. Reddit/Lemmy doesn’t do
I get my news from people on TikTok that do it every week as a round up instead of the shitty corporate owned 24/7 kind.
Mostly seeing what laws are/will take away my ability to exist as a person and all rights associated with it.
Don’t want to be sent to slavery, err they call it prison now right?
Basically getting the upper hand in case I’m not allowed to go to certain places or exist in certain spaces.
More of a survival thing then anything else really.
You think TikTok is better than mainstream media for news?
From experience it is, mainstream Media always is about media and attention and money and control.
TikTok have people who are just people who are reporting what there finding for news to inform others, not for money, not fo views, but because they genuinely want to inform people.
It’s hard to do that on American platforms because anything they don’t like they censored heavily. Yes TikTok does too but not that extent
