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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

(www.scientificamerican.com)
757 points headalgorithm | 2 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.534s | source
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joshdavham ◴[05 Feb 25 15:50 UTC] No.42950233[source]▶
One thing to consider for those of us who are more sensitive to online outrage is to just quit social media all together. I’m technically gen z and I’ve been off of social media (aside from HN, WhatsApp and discord) for years and you wouldn’t believe how great it’s been for my overall state of mind.

Reddit, instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, etc are all the equivalent of digital junk food and I’d argue that we’re all a lot more negatively affected by it than we think. There’s a reason ‘brain rot’ was word of the year.

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1. corytheboyd ◴[05 Feb 25 20:55 UTC] No.42954988[source]▶
Yeah it sure is nice this way isn’t it! It’s pretty boring, but you get to form your own opinions about things, and aren’t constantly mad about things that don’t affect you. I’ll admit to scrolling HN a lot, but I at least get a lot of very useful info out of it, it has leveled me up in unexpected ways over the years.
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2. joshdavham ◴[05 Feb 25 23:35 UTC] No.42956941[source]▶
> you get to form your own opinions about things

Yeah! That's one of the cool things I first noticed when I stopped consuming as much news: I started to form my own unique and nuanced opinions.

It's actually pretty surprising when you learn about how many of your opinions were just absorbed through culture and media and not really 'your own'.