For the last few weeks I have been attempting to limit my access to news and news feeds for the very simple reason it was making me either miserable or annoyed or even both. Now this is not some “stick my head in the sand” moment, ignoring everything that is going on in the world but more a case that I did not need news fed to me constantly with an associated constant stream of dire adjectives. Because as you may have noticed, the only news is bad news, even opinion pieces from the written media are full of, well, misery.
Now we as the public do have to take some of the blame for this and in part this is the way our brains are wired, when out hunting and gathering it was important to be aware of danger and risk but in the modern world this has lead to a rise in misery reporting. When asked most people state they want to hear good news, but despite this numerous studies have shown the opposite and that when given the choice people inevitably click on the bad news stories. Therefore, surprise, surprise, this is where the media focuses. And in a competition to the bottom the stories become ever more angst ridden. This constant stream of negative reporting will invariably lead to a view of the world that is well wide of the reality, but becomes the reality because we are told it is so. Its not just professional media, social media as well can breed this misery cycle.
So in an attempt to break my news habit, which had been exacerbated by working from home, the pandemic and lockdown, my New Years Resolution has been to ween myself away from the news. As with any addiction its only when you tell yourself you are going to stop do you firstly, recognise quite how often you clicked on news and secondly how automatically you had got into the habit of just picking up the phone etc. As a means of helping myself kick the habit I have set myself the challenge to improve my skills in a foreign language, so now everytime I get the urge to pick up the phone or tablet to just have a look, I click on the Duolingo app instead and after 5 minutes of German language skills I am ready to go off and do something else, I have learnt something and I continue to break the addiction.
So how is the detox going, well initially to be honest it felt absolutely weird not to have this constant stream of updates. But in reality, major events have occurred, I heard about them a few hours later and other than surprise at the events themselves, the world didn’t collapse because I didn’t know about them instantly. Indeed by the time I did hear about them there was a better understanding of what was going on and less mindless fill from the reporters. I heard about it, I filed it in my brain, I was aware but it was dealt with. There was nothing for me to do here, I stepped away from endless analysis and I carried on with what I was doing prior to that.
Most importantly I am happier, there is space in my brain for other things, I am more objective and I can focus my energies on those aspects that are immediately and really needing my attention and the reality is most of those occur within a very small distance of where I may be sitting at the time. For more long term challenges I would rather read well researched books or watch a documentary, where perspective including all sides of the arguments are provided and hope and potential solutions are offered. So its not that I have lost my passion for things, its just I believe that you evoke change and improvements by showing people the positives and exciting ways forward, not through misery reporting. So for me in 2021 No News is Good News.
Looking onto the Marshes 