Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

Personally, I fixed the problem by not bothering with "staying informed" at all. I ditched media outside of local news entirely, and just don't engage with things that I can't do anything about. It would boil down to "focus on things you can control." Sure, it's fun to be outraged together with your friends about "X leader in Y country does Z crazy thing" but.. can you do anything about it? Does your opinion matter? Is there value in engaging with it? Turns out the answer is almost always no (unless you're suffering from main-character-syndrome, of course), so what's the point?

Focus on you. What are you doing today? What do you need to reflect on from yesterday? What do you need to plan for tomorrow? Don't waste cycles on things that are out of your scope.

There is an equilibrium to find. democracy isn't just showing up every 4 or 5 years to drop a piece of paper in a box.

Most countries have rights to protest, organise, strike, for a reason. Most of these rights were gained after long fights in which single individual was meaningless but together they moved contains. You have to know when to pull back but you also have to know when to dive in

> It would boil down to "focus on things you can control"

If it only was so simple. How to define such things? Case in point: the biggest "outrage factor" seems to be politics. Well - _can_ you control your country's government? Yes, you can - however not directly. And this means that "I don't care about politics" stance is bad.

edit: spelling

You can do all three: (1) focus on you etc, (2) take an interest in global events, and (3) not get outraged. It really is possible.

It's an excellent point, but is there value in you (as an American, I presume) being around-the-clock outraged for the next four years? Or does it make sense for you to do some research and make a decision in the few weeks leading up to an election? What can you "control" here in the other 206 weeks of the current term?

I'm not saying you shouldn't care about politics at all. But politics in a country you're not a citizen of are irrelevant. And politics in your own country only really matter when it's time to vote, right? So what's the value in "staying informed" outside of that narrow window?

You can control it. But if you're controlling it based on the media's interpretation then you are the one being controlled. Turn off the TV and vote based on how things affect you locally. I think that's what the previous commenter means.

Perhaps it depends on the individual, but I never found it possible.

The news just made me sad, sad and angry most of the time, it's just a stream of 24/7 misery and if there's not enough misery going on locally the news will find misery from around the world to fill the run time.

What am I doing today? Taking care of my son. Trying to have another child. What do I need to plan for tomorrow? How am I going to vaccinate my child next year? How do I get my wife medical care if she has another unviable pregnancy? How small of a life you must lead that you can just not engage.

If you're a citizen of a democracy and you only focus on you, then when it comes time to vote you'll be voting randomly. Or maybe you don't vote and thereby cede control to your neighbors to make decisions for you over the environment in which you live. Assuming you decide to vote then, and since you don't live in a vacuum, your vote will be based on whatever random stuff leaked through to you during the time you were "focusing on you". Actually it's not random. It's whoever spent the most time and money on the propaganda that influences/buys your vote.

So it's not really that simple is it?

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that it is a viable strategy long term.

When you finally decide to pay attention, there is a chance that you will not be able to easily absorb everything that leads to the situation so you will lack any perspective of the past events.

We live in an extremely dense and complex times, staying informed is very difficult as it is even when you try to pay attention.

Not that it would've ever changed my vote, but the candidate was going to win my state regardless of how I voted. Even if I and every other person who is psychologically capable of choosing the other candidate... they were always going to win this state. So no, I can't control my government. I've known this a long while now, I'm not a fool.

>es, you can - however not directly. And this means that "I don't care about politics" stance is bad.

Though you might not be aware of it, you're repeating propaganda that actually aids some nebulous group of people. It seeks to recruit me and my efforts to further their purposes, none of which overlap my own significantly. I can't exert significant indirect influence either. And if I were to pool my insignificant influence with others (such as you suggest) to influence government, it would almost certainly be towards ends I do not agree with. I can be used by others, so to speak, but no one's on my side.

I might get to watch one group I don't agree with go killdozer on another group I don't agree with, and it will be entertaining to watch supposing I can maintain enough distance from the carnage.

Democracy works if everyone votes for the thing(s) they care about. You likely don’t need a news site for information about that.

Except in most "democracies" there is no direct voting on issues. Instead you vote for parties or people who you believe align with your values. To find out about those people/parties you probably need "news"

What helped me is to realize: Sadness and anger come from within, not from the outside. Nobody can "make" you mad. They will do what they do, and it's up to us to decide if and how to emotionally respond to it. We are not amoebas that simply respond to stimulus. We have agency over our own thoughts and feelings. This is something I try to teach my kid, and I think it's also helped her deal with others who she would previously say "made her mad."

How on earth do you need a newspaper to tell you which political party aligns with your values?

Depending on where you live, there’s 2-10 parties. You know who they are and what they want. If you want to affect the outcome you can get involved in your local politics; being glued to NYT.com all day isn’t changing one thing except wasting time.

I think "deciding whether to emotionally respond" to something... isn't emotion?

Emotion is something you feel, not something you decide to allow yourself to feel.

Like, if I hear about someone being raped or murdered, how am I not going to have an emotional reaction of sadness or anger to that? And ultimately what use was that emotion? I cannot prevent the event happening, it has already happened, I am just a voyeur to someone else's tragedy.

Most of the news is like that. It's events that have already happened, that I can do nothing about but I'm vaguely meant to be up to date with because.... reasons? Some vague concept that everyone is meant to have an inch deep understanding of current events so they've got something to gossip about?

I truly don't see the point or the benefit.

> when it comes time to vote you'll be voting randomly

Not at all, I think citizens have an obligation to vote, and an obligation to do their research when it's time to vote. But let's say that takes you a week. Why bother being focused on the outrage during the rest of the term? What value is there to you being mad at whatever politician on week 15 of their 208 week term? If anything, I'd say "staying informed" is a hinderance, because you'll always just be focused on the issue-of-the-day and build mental biases rather than being able to take a wider view of what the politician implemented, and how it played out over a period of time afterwards.

Whether you're influenced by facts or "propaganda" unfortunately depends entirely on your own research and critical thinking skills, and has little to do with timing.

All fair points. I'm having trouble understanding how this relates to the outrage-centered media, however.

Current top stories on the CNN frontpage are:

> Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship is blocked nationwide

> Trump’s Gaza plan is the most outlandish in region’s peacemaking history

> China is building a giant laser to generate the energy of the stars, satellite images appear to show

Is your child not a citizen? Are you child's vaccines related to Gaza, somehow? Will China's laser affect your wife's pregnancy?

Why do you feel the need to engage with this?

There might not be much of a difference in your mental health condensing 2-4 years' of rage into just one week.

Perhaps another strategy could be to maintain an awareness of the motivations and tactics of publishers/content creators, and that could be enough as an inoculation.

I imagine a clown on the street trying to enrage me, and I being aware of what it's trying to do, instead just laugh at it.

Today I walked into a restaurant with a cable TV news channel blaring on about the "invasion of men" into women's college sports. They offered no proof, just a continuous barrage of commentary. As I waited for my sandwich I watched one after another, with just continuous outrage. No proof, no on-site reporters, no B tape, nothing at all to support the claims being made. It was like watching bad science fiction of an alternate universe. I chuckled nervously as I looked around and wondered if the others there actually believed it. None of them were laughing.

Do you know about referendums? Recall elections? Snap elections? Midterm elections? Strikes and protests? Or how about just letting your representative know how you'll vote in their next election to deter bad behavior they're conducting in the current moment?

Must be nice for the current American administration to have 4 years of no democratic oversight to do whatever they want.

So your argument to not engaging is that my argument isn’t sufficiently updated to the onslaught of news today? RFK passed committee yesterday. Trump planning to use our military for a middle east genocide isn’t something that I should worry about?!? Where were you on 9/11?

Of course you can affect your country’s government. You can take five minutes every few years to decide who to vote for (spending more on that seems like a waste of time considering the payoff).

More than that though. You can protest and organize however much you like. There’s no cap on that.

And that is how insidious “news” is. The news broadcasts the hegemonic mindset. The same mindset that says that citizens’ only role is to vote every few years. Other than that they are supposed to stay home. Certainly not make a ruckus or anything.

And that’s what many conclude. That they are only supposed to be political in a direct, consequential sense by voting. Then it is clearly absurd, from a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, to stay ever-constantly informed on politics all the time.

The simplest way to control your inner life is to not let whatever miserable output in. In other words turn it off.

It’s really entitled (by whom? who knows) to say that people have control over their inner lives as a response to the News being misery-inducing (according to them). Yeah. So turn it off. You don’t own the outside world your attention.

> Emotion is something you feel, not something you decide to allow yourself to feel.

Recognizing your emotions when you are making a decision is key. The emotions you feel will largely be outside your control but you can catch a thought you disagree with when you have it and wonder what triggered that thought. If the trigger was an emotion, you can wonder what triggered the emotion. Ask "five whys" (google it if you don't know what I mean). You have more control over this than you seem to think; you will just have to practice exercising it.

Will worrying stop Trump? I believe that is the overarching point here.

Stressing over things you can't/won't impact is largely a waste of time and energy. Your worry wont help Gaza.

> And politics in your own country only really matter when it's time to vote, right?

Not really, since by the time you get to vote, it might, for example, so happen that there are no real opposition candidates, because they are effectively blocked from running. Or the opposition is there, but is locked out from all the usual mass propaganda outlets (TV etc).

* you don’t owe

Worrying is a precursor for planning and action. I have agency. We all do. Sad that you squander yours.

Definitionally there is no action that you will or can take about the things I said not to worry about, since I made that the condition. Comon man, at least read the comment.

I didn't say "never worry about anything ever".