Three months of not reading the news

Three months ago, I stopped reading the news.

I made a note to force myself to reflect on it, after three months, and this is that reflection.

This is about general news / news sites

I still read lots of RSS feeds of people’s blogs. I love this.

I still read industry-specific news sites (mainly law-related stuff), and other sources of information which are often the basis of news coverage (e.g. government or regulator press releases and updates).

I still read local news, but wow is that a rubbish experience. I get that local news needs funding to survive, but making the product so unappetising makes selling me a subscription a very hard sell indeed. Frankly, I could probably just not read the local news and keep an eye on the local council’s roadworks website instead.

I still have my 404Media subscription although, to be honest, I am a bit on the fence about it. I am not sure if I will renew it or not at this point. No slight to the quality of their journalism.

What I have basically stopped doing is reading the BBC, the FT, the Guardian etc.

It took a while for me to adjust

I had not appreciated just how conditioned I was to reading the news when I had a spare moment.

It took me quite a while to get used to the idea of not opening the BBC website, in particular.

I did not go to the extent of blocking news sites, so this was just based on self-control / choosing not to do it.

Curiously, what I found hard was that almost instinctive “fingers move to open a news site” behaviour, rather than actually missing reading the news.

I had to train myself out of it, and now, it doesn’t cross my mind.

I still see some general news, just less of it

I have not managed to avoid general news entirely, nor was I really intended to do so. This was about lessening my exposure, rather than doing all that I can to avoid it.

I still see people posting news-related stories in the fediverse, and I just scroll on by. In some cases, I can filter by keywords, and so no If someone posts news too much (or, in particular, posts party political stuff), I either unfollow them or mute them. I’ve no temptation to click the links.

Am I less informed?

Yes, and that is by design!

Before, I was informed about a whole load of things, in a way, and to an extent, that I didn’t find helpful or healthy.

Now, I am aware, in broad terms, of major stuff going on around the world, but I am far less familiar with the minutiae, or the endless “up to the minute” reporting. That feels like a good level of awareness for me.

I am also far less exposed to stuff that I never cared about in the first place, especially “celebrity” news, of which I remain blissfully ignorant, sport, and so on. To each, their own.

I don’t miss reading the news at all

For now, anyway, I don’t miss reading the news.

At all.

I’ve overcome that reflex of opening a news site.

I have not - as far as I know, anyway, which I appreciate is quite a caveat - missed anything which, had I known about it, would have made a significant difference to anything important.

I read far more books (and buying the tiny, pocketable, X4 ereader was an attempt to distract me from my phone more often, letting me read even more).

So I am going to carry on with this experiment for now, and see how I get on.

I can’t prove that this experiment has been good for my mental health, but it certainly feels that way.

Perhaps a monthly summary of “important” stories would be nice?

Even though I do not want to read the news, I wonder if a monthly, edited, one-or-two page kind of approach, of key / important news stories, might be welcome.

Of course, there would be complexity in determining what is “key” or “important”, as that is subjective.