←back to thread

Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

(www.scientificamerican.com)
757 points headalgorithm | 4 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.823s | source
Show context
karaterobot ◴[05 Feb 25 15:33 UTC] No.42949929[source]▶
Avoid following the news constantly. Check in every once in a while—a couple times a week at most. Get your news from long articles, not tweets. Actually read the articles, don't just learn about the world from hot takes.

> ... people have found that, actually, outrage can be useful. It actually can help you identify a problem and react to it. But it can also be harmful if you’re experiencing it all the time and become overwhelmed by it.

I'm reading that as meaning something more like identify a problem and act on it. Outrage itself is a reaction, just not a positive one. There's no shortage of people reacting to things.

replies(9): >>42950086 #>>42950624 #>>42951057 #>>42954204 #>>42955710 #>>42956681 #>>42957297 #>>42958168 #>>42960906 #
joshdavham ◴[05 Feb 25 15:41 UTC] No.42950086[source]▶
> Avoid following the news constantly. Check in every once in a while—a couple times a week at most.

Agreed. I personally believe that checking the news everyday is akin to something like a ‘news overdose’. There’s nothing wrong with spending just 15 minutes per week. At least for me, that’s a far healthier dose.

replies(4): >>42950629 #>>42950774 #>>42951603 #>>42952031 #
1. flyinghamster ◴[05 Feb 25 16:22 UTC] No.42950774[source]▶
Indeed, 40 years ago, if we weren't getting our news from the TV, we quite often got it via weekly news magazines and Sunday newspapers.
replies(1): >>42952980 #
2. jonathanlb ◴[05 Feb 25 18:31 UTC] No.42952980[source]▶
Someone I spoke with recently mentioned that it used to be that you could read a newspaper end-to-end and feel like you were informed. Now, it's an endless stream of information. I would posit that our brains weren't intended to consume that much information, but I'll leave that as uninformed speculation.
replies(2): >>42956060 #>>42958897 #
3. genewitch ◴[05 Feb 25 22:15 UTC] No.42956060[source]▶
"used to be"? when? I had an L.A. Times subscription in high school and there was no way, even with 2 hours of bus ride a day plus lunch and breaks to finish that paper.

I think a lot of discourse is colored by the midwest. The midwest influenced movies (what does a US neighborhood look like? are there hills/trees/snow?), TV, radio, and literature. I imagine midwest newspapers to be like southern newspapers, 2-3 broadsheets per section if that.

I wonder how many words i can write on this subject

4. int_19h ◴[06 Feb 25 03:57 UTC] No.42958897[source]▶
> it used to be that you could read a newspaper end-to-end and feel like you were informed

Of course, the downside of that approach is that the people who control the (relatively few) major newspapers effectively get to define what "informed" means - and, most importantly, what it does _not_ include.