"I had a client with three young children, who believed that she had to keep abreast of the details of the Middle East conflict. This meant that once her children were finally in bed, she would find herself scrolling for hours in an attempt to stay up-to-date and knowledgeable on what is happening.
She believed that to be a conscientious and caring human, it is something she had to do."
I think we do have to keep somewhat abreast of what’s going on. Some brands we support could be complicit. We might be voting for the very people who are fuelling the horrors that are unfolding around the world.
We as people just aren’t built to process the volume of information that’s available nowadays though and spending hours attempting to do so isn’t the answer. On the other hand, I’m not sure that we should be unaffected by what’s happening to our fellow humans either. Looking after our own well-being has to be a part of the equation though.
Ignorance is bliss
Yeah. As someone who has spent years doing both both — spending hours every day staying on-top of current events and related history in my teens, to ignoring all of it after graduating into my early 20’s, then back to paying attention again — it’s a double edged sword.
You waste so many hours of your life caring about this shit — time that could be spent on relationships, wealth, self-care, and leisure — but an uninformed and ignorant population is why the species and planet is in so much shit. Ignorance is only bliss if external forces don’t end up fucking your life.
I get this. I’ve reached a point where I just can’t bring myself to care any more. I feel bad there are people suffering but I feel this is a constant, bad news cycles are good news. Sometimes it’s children being gunned down. Sometimes there’s a protest in Boise Idaho for a conflict in another continent. Sometimes it’s hand wringing about a beer spokesperson. Sometimes it’s politics for countries I don’t live in. I’ve reached a point where I’m avoiding news but getting told opinions constantly.
Meanwhile I’ve got a life full of small compounding problems. Nothing news worthy but a struggle. I can’t bring myself to care anymore about problems outside my twenty feet. I just can’t. I don’t feel like it’s even genuine anymore. People want my opinion so they can confirm their own or launch into their prepared rebuttal.
I mean, that’s the Job of News Networks. Its their Job to stay up-to-date and then serve it to you in digestible portions so you can stay up-to-date as well.
And if you don’t trust “commercialized” news networks in the US, there’s always News Networks such as dw from germany that get money from the Rundfunkgebühr (special Tax if you own a Television or Radio).
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Happiness is just a lack of information.
- Nico Semsrott, Demotivation Coach (roughly translated)
Ignorance is bliss.
I get this. I don’t even actively seek that stuff out, but in the interest of staying somewhat informed I follow a lot of news/politics communities here. Negative news obviously sells (in the form of receiving clicks) so a fair majority of my feed is made up of depressing info. I only read one or two actual articles a day, but the summary and/or comments are usually enough to bum me out.
Thankfully the rest of my feed is shitposts, memes, and cute animal pics so it keeps me from actively wanting to die.
I’m NOT a psychologist - Doom scrolling has a devastating impact.
And I didn’t get that from Newsweek so that’s a plus in the credibility score.
I used to read that magazine in the 80’s and 90’s and feel like it used to have some good journalism. I remember doing a school report on their Hiroshima article in a magazine that came out in 1984 if I remember correctly. It was fascinating to 5th grade me. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Although that smug conservative prick that had the column on the last page was always worthless.
30 years ago we used it as a textbook in Contemporary Issues in high school.
I’m not a BigFig - Doom scrolling has a devastating impact
what do you call those that are non-news specific ‘scrollers’? i never knew that ‘doomscrolling’ is news-specific.
I don’t have a name for it but excessive idle scrolling without purpose can be considered a deactivating behavior and may contribute to depressive states. It generally does not give us a sense of accomplishment or happiness.
It’s not a horrible thing to engage in of course but it’s all about moderation and context. 10-15 minutes on your break? Probably not the worst thing. 3 hours after work? Maybe not the best but for some people maybe helps wind down. 3 hours right after you wake up? Probably not a great idea, setting a bad momentum for the day. But all of these as isolated incidents? Not a huge issue. All of them happening regularly? Maybe look at replacing them with something that makes you feel more of a sense of achievement or at least feels intentional and see how that impacts your mood. Might be more drastic than you’d think
Okay, I get this… Hell I FEEL this, even though I only scroll through Lemmy. But let’s say I do want to stay informed, but don’t want it to just be info about the bad stuff: does anyone know of a good source that aggregates all the good stuff people are doing? Like what’s the squad up to? Who’s fighting to take back power from the corporations? Who’s fighting and winning? Who’s inventing ways to stop climate change? That kind of stuff… Not so much the cutsie “I have a crush on my husband” stuff
