Sometimes it directly affects you. You benefit from being informed about stuff occurring near you, in your country, likely about the largest trade partners of your country. Possibly you're not very interested in what happens in Botswana or Peru, and Western media cover these places scarcely. But maybe news about China are important for you in most of the world, or news about Russia are important for you if you're in Europe and depend on Russian gas, and generally don't like warfare near you. Etc.

It affecting me doesn't mean I need to know why. If a serious earthquake happens it also affects me a lot and there's no way to get news about it in advance. The only reason you feel like you have to follow the news is because you can, but at the cost of what?

I have several examples of major world events I didn't know about for many weeks or months until it came up in conversation and I've never felt it affected me in a negative way, meanwhile I get time for long walks with my dog.

Earthquakes are one of the few disasters that strike with absolutely no warning.

And that's why I used that example. The others you can kinda predict from following news. If I used another example the argument would make no sense.

For a recentish example, my family had a decent amount of toilet paper stocked up before panic buying due to covid led to it running out. I would have had to pay a significant premium for TP if I hadn't stayed informed.