"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
There's a difference between paying no attention to politics at all and avoiding getting wrapped up the angry day-to-day drama where you pay a large emotional price but your input matters zero.
I was talking politics with my girlfriend last night and I made pretty much the same point, though more pointed at politics. My argument is that really the most important things in one's life is family, friends and your local community, everything else (such as national politics) might as well be a game show called "news" that everyone tunes into every day.
If you decide to tune into that game show every day, make sure you keep it at "arms length", getting too close will make you go crazy.