This quote from Thomas Jefferson seems relevant:

"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus & Thucydides, for Newton & Euclid; & I find myself much the happier." [0]

[0] http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/280

Jefferson was 80 when he wrote that, so the context is a little different than what people are discussing here.

this is a fundamentally conservative to the point of bordering on reactionary practice. you have the privilege of not reading the news presumably because you're not a government worker so the shutdown didn't matter to you, and/or you're not a recipient of various aid programs so their cuts don't matter to you, etc etc. checking out is a luxury only the well off can afford.

"X is only available to you as a result of privilege" seems like a very weak argument not to do X. I cook most of my food at home, which is really only an option available to me because I have the privilege of being able to afford a flat with a kitchen and a short commute to work. It is still a good idea for me to do so. I go to the gym most days, which requires a monthly payment of money -- but it is still a good idea for my focus and mental health.

I agree but it also makes the original hypothesis a lot weaker as well.

"If you're reasonably affluent, straight, white, cisgender, male or a sufficient subset thereof you should unburden yourself from having to keeping up with the news secure that your interests are well protected."

For me it's less about being informed and more that I have to keep up with the news on certain topics/issues because I have to actually do things in response to the news or my life will get worse. It's not like I, or I think anyone, wants to have to read the news.

I used to keep up with it out of an unspecified sense of civic duty. But this didn’t result in any sort of action—-indeed the distraction and hours of time lost scrolling resulted in me not fulfilling my responsibilities to those close to me.

> I have to do things in response to the news

I would like to know what this consists of.

Is this in terms of needing to protest against things? Needing to switch suppliers of medications?

The gist of his main point is still correct. If you focus on your atomistic individual interests you'll probably be ignoramt of the status and developments of persons in your community but not in your daily life, and so change is resisted; problems caused by incumbents grow.

Well I feel that following news for the sake of... following news ? is also very ignorant. Like people getting angry at stuff that they don't fully understand, is that reasonable ?

>but then you have the no right to complain when laws are passed that don't align to your values.

Who says that ever happens ?

How about following news in order to be an informed citizen, who makes informed choices about how to vote, what to protest and what to support?

I don't practice any of those, because repeating what media told you about issues which context you have no idea about doesn't exactly sound enlightened to me. I've seen it happen about issues in my small area of expertise, I can only guess how desperate experts of discussed issues must be.

There is no single entity of "the media" though. The whole point the OP was making was that you should seek our a variety of news sources and evaluate them. Would you say "repeating what reviews have told you about a product you're thinking of buying doesn't sound enlightened to me"?

The idea that everything you read in the news is garbage because they don't have a solid grasp on the strange esoterica we work in simply doesn't make any sense. There's no reason why any news organisation would be equally informed on every topic. So yeah, if I read an article in the Washington Post comparing relational databases I'd be suspicious. But if I read an article about tax policy, written by a journalist who has spent years studying the area, what on earth would it have to do with my database experience?

There's a difference between reading unbiased news from reputable sources for the facts, and getting takes on news from talking heads.

Why one has to be an informed citizen? Why one has to vote? Why one has to always protest? Why one has to always support something?

> We’re afraid to ask ourselves deep and meaningful questions.

Noise and news are an incentive for people to play this left-right, right-wrong game you described in your comment.

> Why one has to be an informed citizen? Why one has to vote?

It's in your own interest to do so. How much do you pay in tax? Do you think that's right? What about public services? How are the roads around you? Your trash pickup? These are all things managed by elected officials. If you care about any of them it's in your interests to vote.

The answer to all the above questions is: is in the interest of the elected officials.

What does that mean?

> Why one has to be an informed citizen? Why one has to vote? Why one has to always protest? Why one has to always support something?

Is not in your interest. Is in the interest of the elected officials. They get to you through the news and social media (by sharing). In simple words: they don't give a F about you, the taxes or the roads.

They give a fuck about your vote, though. It your vote is informed (as well as the vote of a significant chunk of the informed population), you can bet your ass they'll wonder pretty hard what happened when your vote goes elsewhere.

They give an F about being re-elected though, which you have control over.

> following news for the sake of... following news

That's not what they are asking or claiming.