Vanity activities

I have this debate with people about news and podcasts sometimes (news was one of the examples in TFA). People say they are doing it to remain informed, and it’s a high-value activity, but I argue it’s mostly entertainment since it rarely affects any decision-making.

This is not a hardline position, but I’m surprised at how vehemently people insist that their news habit has benefits beyond entertainment.

(To be clear, I have nothing against entertainment.)

News consumption impacts political decision making, like who I want to support or oppose in local, state, and national elections.

That seems a pretty high impact decision we want all the members of our society to be making on a regular basis.

True, I don’t have the right to vote in the place where I live, so that definitely reduces my incentive to engage in news.

But out of friends who engage in news it’s disproportionately at the global and nation level, so I don’t think they are really optimizing for civil engagement.