Paying attention to current events and bearing witness to some of the darkest aspects of human history is important at a societal level and if you don't think it is important to you personally then consider yourself lucky to live a life where the real world doesn't creep in often. Understanding topics such as why refugees are fleeing conflict, the societal changes due to automation etc, and the consequences of climate change are critical to a healthy and functional nation.
Personally I can't stand the breathless hysteria/sensationalism of most mainstream American media organizations (particularly television) and prefer organizations that favour accuracy and historical context over clickbait.
But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stinks, if it bleeds it leads". There is nothing good to get from mainstream news. Nothing. Sliced and diced to the most emotional snippets you could conceive of.
I feel bad for people that just get trampled on from all over the world, but that's as far as I let it go. During the 2nd Bush election I went all out, I was into trying to 'make a difference'. I protested, traveled, got involved with local and national groups, was surveilled, and literally was putting my safety on the line to try to make the world a better place.
In the end, he still got re-elected and some of the most corrupt people in U.S. history continued their rampage. It was bad enough the first time, but the second time completely just blew away my foundation of what I thought was just in the world. I never trusted the news or politicians after that. They are not here for 'us'. They ALL have an agenda whether you like it or not. There is such a disconnect between 'content' and real people - it's pathetic and there's no where that that comes out more than from tv.
After all of this, I've decided to just act locally and contribute to causes that want to fight the good fight but, in my mind, are in for a lot of suffering and struggle (eff, aclu, center for human rights, amnesty, etc). It takes a toll on one when you are struggling and it's nonstop uphill.
My wife and friends are always coming up to me with the latest tragedy that has surfaced on facebook. family members, the latest shooting or crash, or death or whatever. I choose to remove myself from all of this because it does _no good_ to me and for me.
Unless I actually go to those places and involve myself with those struggles (see point 5 in op), then I'm just fooling myself by being 'concerned'.
Tv and news is a waste of precious time and there are much better ways to affect and change the world than being sedentary and 'informed' yet doing nothing.
The only ways to mitigate this is to use a healthy amount of skepticism, to educate yourself on the historical context of ongoing current events, and to be aware of the slant that even the most impartial news source may have.
I don't disagree in regards to acting rather than just being informed and that acting locally is probably the best way we can make a difference. Likewise with burning out on media!
Our education system was supposed to deliver critical thinkers. Either the system failed you (and possibly a generation), or you have forgotten its lessons.
I can't fix the World or the dark aspects of the human soul, but hopefully made my local area a better place since I dropped-out of the news-cycle a few years ago. I use my former news 'time-budget' to become invoved in Council business, to follow the activities of my local politicians and to just go and do stuff that benefits people around the town.
I feel better informed as a result and I'm no longer surprised and enraged by 'unexpected' changes in my local environment.
I helped to fix a pothole in a local road last week. Utterly irrelevant on a global scale, but then so is a plane crash in Colombia.
Or not, maybe it would be better. Imagine country where people are mindful about their immediate surrounding and don't buy into ideological bullshit sold by mass media. Want to send young men to some war? Well tough luck, if there is no conflict at the doorstep then this move is probably to benefit someone else, not you.
Refugees overflowing streets? Common sense tells you to take a look at what kind of people they are and if they are good and acknowledge their situation and want to better it, then help them. But if they act like arrogant invaders then common sense would be to tell them to bugger off. Yet media adhering to its ideology would tell you that you are wrong to use common sense. That somehow WYSIWYG is not right here and that some abstract oppression these people are fleeting from is more important.
>and the consequences of climate change are critical to a healthy and functional nation
Lets see how in future china deals with climate change as opposed to societies with 'well informed' citizens.
And that in turn leads to negative outcomes.
More authoritarianism, more withdrawal into closed communities, more willingness to vote for leaders who will solve the "terrible state" of the country / world by any means necessary, more enthusiasm for punishment over empathy, more othering of whichever ethic/social group that's currently being blamed for Everything Being Bad.
If you're trying to gain an accurate understanding of the world, starting with sources with an extremely strong incentive to bias the hell out of your worldview is probably not the best way to do it.
And if you're just trying to understand and mentally experience the worst humanity has to offer, then history books have plenty of really horrible shit in them, generally far worse than the 21st century so far (thankfully).
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+sun+sensationalist+hea...
I think on the way to that happening, the world would become a much better place before it gets worse. Only a very tiny percentage of us needs to try to understand events around the world and repeat to peers what they think is worth repeating, then those peers repeat to their peers what they thought was important to hear, and so on.
It's already kind of happening since journalists aren't a big percentage of the population, but instead of filtering out the important stuff, it's what we call the "media circus" and big business.
You are confusing reading/watching the news with being informed. Trusting superficial and biased news is disinformation. Being a witness, a citizen journalist, an activist, and reading books thoroughly is another thing.
I agree it is not a good idea to watch the news. It's probably a good idea to read it.
> To be clear, I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here
Title is clickbaity, but that's not any commenter's fault.
I can see where the misunderstanding may have come from -- I could have explained it better originally.
This is just silly.
> I told them that people in my life would let me know if anything occurred that I needed to know.
This is so true. I told my girlfriend the same thing after she got mad that I quit news and said "Oh, you'll need to know important local news (stabbings, crime in San Francisco, protests for traffic etc).
That 1 time where someone 4 blocks from my home got run over by some dummy doing facebook live in her car while driving, the convenient store guy in my block asked me "Hey, did you hear about that so and so got run over." I said no, but you just told me. :)
* It puts the burden of collecting and summarizing relevant news on others
* You are at the mercy of the grapevine effect, which only gets worse as more and more people take up this solution so your news takes more hops before you receive it
* And, most importantly, your sources are also not getting their news first hand; their sources the very same crappy news outlets that you yourself rejected.
Not following the news is a perfectly rational choice. You'll be less stressed, much happier, less distracted therefore have better self-knowledge and a better capacity to self-actualize, and you can spend more time with your kids (who really need it).
In life, there aren't the uninformed and the informed. There are the uninformed and the misinformed.
There are like five journalistic camps that feed into my grapevine, and they all report the same stories, and spin five different opinions on the same daily topics. Thus, the grapevine provides the same complete set, five times, redundantly.
All of the stories from these camps are useless. The stories are not, in fact relevant, and so I do not care how slowly they appear at my feet. I usually just step over them anyway and go about my business.
Please don't change the subject to downvotes. The HN guidelines already contain two admonitions against this and I'd like not to add a third.
I hope, it will help.
If you have high IQ but lazy at explaining of basic things for regular Joe, regular Joe will downvote you, because he cannot follow you nor discuss with you.
At work, to check is my explanation is simple enough, I play a challenging game while thinking (I use sopwith, my IQ is about 140): if I'm able to think and play at same time, then my brain has some power to spare, so it is simple enough for people with IQ about 120. If not, then they will not be able to follow me. I use that technique for almost decade. Works well at work, when I have time to explain, e.g. in comments to tickets, emails, and so on.