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Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

(www.scientificamerican.com)
757 points headalgorithm | 1 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.256s | source
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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.

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1. Cthulhu_ ◴[06 Feb 25 10:13 UTC] No.42960906[source]▶
To add, find the source itself; submissions to HN are sometimes guilty of this (and often get corrected), posting an article about an article instead of the article itself, the meta-article telling you how to feel and think about the source instead of the source sticking to the facts. And the headline on HN itself priming you as well (but there's the policy that titles on HN should not be editoralised).

It's why I like kinda "boring" news outlets like Reuters. I don't know for sure but our national news thing (NOS) feels fair as well, it doesn't have an overt political alignment and will often report on both sides - even if I'm very much inclined to dismiss one side, but I won't claim to be unbiased.