Sickened by the news...

[ApatheticNoMore]

I think people confuse maybe 3 things which I have found no ideal solution to but the 3 things are:

1) following news
2) wanting to take opportunities to be involved in having an influence on things/making things better in one's society. This isn't very well served by news at all, I have no idea what it would be well served by, maybe being on an activist mailing list or many, being involved in local or party politics, obviously when a ballot arrives in the mail, that's a notification of one little thing one can do.
3) sheer curiosity about how the world works. this can be met partially by news, only news is broad but shallow here (yes books are a deeper treatment). And this desire to know can get kind of insatiable.

I guess there might be another motive that's strictly personal, of feeling they need to personally protect themselves from whatever is going on in the world, and so they read for threats as it were. There are lots of threats in the world, what can I say, maybe not mostly crime but maybe a threat is investing with Bernie Madoff I don't know, and we can only do so much to protect ourselves from them anyway, in a world where no one else is much going to.

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There is probably a reason weekly news magazines got started (like Newsweek etc. - not saying they are the best sources out there or anything, but thinking about the concept of weekly news). Because it's probably as much news as anyone really needs for any given week, it to read the news for the week ONCE a week.

[rosarugosa]

I only give the news about a 10 minute online browse daily. I find this works very well for me personally.

[CathyA]

I watch too much news......local and national. But I seem to have this hypervigilence problem and feel it necessary to know what's going on.
As far as the national news, I watch about 1/2 hour in the a.m. and only about 10-15 minutes in the evening. Still.......I do wonder what it would be like to not know what's going on. For some reason, it bothers me to not know.
....especially in these scary times, both locally and nationally.

[HappyHiker]

Yes, I think a news fast is good for our peace of mind. It's hard to achieve, though, don't you think?

I see the headlines every time I turn on the computer. People on Facebook talk about world affairs and politics. The newspaper headlines in the news boxes catch my eye. The TV's at the gym are always on to the news stations.

But I do my best to take a break from the blood and gore and unkindness that humans inflict on other humans--and on other living creatures. And the earth. But golly gee, it's an ugly, brutal world that's portrayed in so many media. "If it bleeds, it leads."

Leads to fear and distrust of our brother and sister humans...maybe that's the point??

[goldensmom]

A news fast is an excellent idea. I’ve done it and need to do it again, it is good for the soul and for perspective. Another thing that I personally need to do is take a ‘fast’ from reading comments on news articles that I read online. Many of the comments are beyond rude, they are contemptuous, provocative often vulgar and are not a good thing to put into my head as it serves no good purpose. I am tempted (the devil made me do it?) to respond but do not as the rational me knows better than add fuel to the fire.


I do watch local news, good information, not skewed, no opinions just what’s happening.