Last updated March 2024
“Watching the news, the plot you already know”
Iggy Pop
You read correctly, I don’t watch the news.
Over the last years, with a short pause at the beginning of the pandemic, I have reduced my news consumption to nearly zero. I sometimes try to explain it to people, and it feels like I’m inviting them to a cult, so I will try to explain the motivations behind my decision and the benefits it has brought me.
This is not a game-changing idea; many people avoid the news or social media, but it is a conversation that has come up frequently lately, so here is my take on it. The main reason I don’t watch the news is obvious: I don’t have the habit of watching. I will explore the causes of not having this habit.
Infomania
From Wikipedia: Infomania is the state of information overload created by the combination of a backlog to the information process and continuous interruptions from technology. It is also the obsessive need to constantly check social media, online news or emails.
In his book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport talks about technology being the new smoking. By the 1950s, everyone knew smoking was bad. Still, there was no regulation, smoking companies kept debunking the health experts who warned against smoking, and as a result, lots of people smoked. It’s the same today with tech; we all know mindless, infinite scrolling is bad, but we still do it nonetheless. There is a constant stream of bits flowing our way, every day we ingest the information a small town would consume yearly in the 1800s, and yet we don’t see a problem with this.
Growing up, we didn’t have a TV (my parents didn’t want one), which embarrassed me very much and shocked everyone who knew (when I see random people from high school, they still remember me as the guy with no TV). My parents were tech-savvy for the early and mid-2000s, got all their news off the internet, and valued time reading or being creative over TV. We used to watch DVDs on a big computer screen, and later we got a projector, so we consumed media, but my parents just chose to spend their time differently.
Back then, I developed a habit that has accompanied me into my university years: I don’t watch the news. Today, I have a TV, although it’s been unplugged for months. I sometimes watch movies on my computer just to avoid the cable hassle, and mostly only turn it on when friends are over to watch a football game.
Why Avoid the News?
“It’s amazing the amount of news that happens in the world every day always fits the newspaper”
Jerry Seinfeld
The news are the way that people have been told what is going on in the world for generations, through newspapers, radio, TV and on the web and this was great when events happened miles away from your location and reaching these places took a ton of effort and money, not just pulling out your phone. People watch the news to “be informed”, people want to know what is going on so things don’t surprise them when they happen, ultimately, they are a kind of entertainment.
As an individual, you have no power over the events that the news informs you about; you can get agitated about some policy or problem, but you seldom have any power over what is being reported. Most of the time, we aren’t interested in changing anything, so why bother watching? This idea of why do anything if it has no impact is cynical and negative, but what if you used that time?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about being productive or anything like that, the objective of not watching the news is not to save time to work more or to hustle. It is just to take back two hours a day (at least) and then use them towards whatever you like. It is about not using that time mindlessly out of habit or because it is what everyone does. Two hours a day at the end of the year amounts to 30 days, which may greatly contribute to hobbies, health or relationships.
Finally, most people watch the news with a preconceived notion based on ideology. Many people counter this argument by saying they contrast their sources and consume news from different outlets for different points of view. This is marvellous, but ignoring the fact that this increases the time you spend on information, most people who do this contrasting, visit the outlet with different thought with a preconceived us vs them mentality, going there to see what the other side is saying, just to make sure it is wrong or to criticize it no matter what. Some people go as far as willingly seeking ideas they are very opposed to to get agitated, which baffles me.
Combining the need for shock effect, the zero actionability, and our psychological predisposition to be convinced makes the news something I avoid as much as possible.
What about knowing what is going on in the world?
People always have a problem when I tell them this: I will not know about important events that are happening and that may directly affect me, which is a real problem. In my case, for the minor stuff, I really don’t care, for the big events, word of mouth will be my news cycle. Once something important enough happens, people talk about it nearly immediately. Then, if the event interests me or really affects me, I can look into it or read about it. My idea here is not to cut ties with the world and not care about what is happening out there, it is about keeping communication to the strictly necessary.
From a purely economic standpoint, the amount of time invested is not correlated with the results I obtain from watching the news. If I spend the same time on something that brings me more joy, I believe the tradeoff benefits me. If knowing what is going on in the world is the end result of watching the news, I can obtain the crucial filtered-down information for a fraction of the time investment.
Final Thoughts
I don’t watch the news because it is the easiest way to get back 2 hours or more a day to do things I believe are of higher priority. I encourage you to think about priorities when you spend your time, as it is one of the easiest ways to focus on what matters to you.