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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

(www.scientificamerican.com)
757 points headalgorithm | 6 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.499s | source | bottom
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parliament32 ◴[05 Feb 25 15:08 UTC] No.42949484[source]▶
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.

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cal85 ◴[05 Feb 25 15:24 UTC] No.42949756[source]▶
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.
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1. dageshi ◴[05 Feb 25 15:43 UTC] No.42950114[source]▶
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.

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2. ryandrake ◴[05 Feb 25 16:21 UTC] No.42950761[source]▶
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."
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3. dageshi ◴[05 Feb 25 17:19 UTC] No.42951853[source]▶
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.

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4. keybored ◴[05 Feb 25 20:16 UTC] No.42954498[source]▶
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.

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5. lcnPylGDnU4H9OF ◴[05 Feb 25 21:26 UTC] No.42955407{3}[source]▶
> 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.

6. keybored ◴[06 Feb 25 17:36 UTC] No.42964600{3}[source]▶
* you don’t owe