**Source:**](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews) **Author:** Aaron Swartz **Type:** #litnote **Topics:** [[Social Media]] [[Mindfulness]] ---- - News is waste of time. It doesn't make you good citizen either as most people seem to think - None of the news makes any relevance to your life - People think news expose the wrong-doing of people and stop the wrong=doers but it is not so. It makes the wrong-doers do the crime more subtly. - Don't need to watch news everyday if you want to vote, can just read the guide about the candidate and issues before election - No need to suffer the back and forth allegation on the news. Your life won't change by reading or listening to the news - Instead of watching news daily why not do it weekly or even annualy? - Its not just a waste of time but also unhealthy - If your life doesn't improve with it, or can't be greatly enhanced by it, you can stop watching and reading the news%% ID: 13204932 Updated: 2022-01-28 %% ![](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article2.74d541386bbf.png) # About Title: [[Other/Obsidian Starter Vault(Second Brain)/Readwise 1/Articles/I Hate the News]] Author: [[aaronsw.com]] Category: #articles Number of Highlights: ==21== Last Highlighted: *2021-12-02* Readwise URL: https://readwise.io/bookreview/13204932 Source URL: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews # Highlights everybody seems to agree: it’s a citizen’s responsibility to keep up with the news. Everybody except me. ^278319777 --- following the news is a waste of time. ^278319778 --- they do this because they think these are aberrations; that underneath all this, the news is worth saving ^278319779 --- I think none of it is worthwhile. ^278319780 --- None of these stories have relevance to my life. Reading them may be enjoyable, but it’s an enjoyable waste of time. ^278319781 --- They will have no impact on my actions one way or another. ^278319782 --- They point out that newspapers are a key part of our democracy, that by exposing wrong-doing to the people, they force the wrong-doers to stop. ^278319783 --- The government commits a crime, the New York Times prints it on the front page, the people on the cable chat shows foam at the mouth about it, the government apologizes and commits the crime more subtly. ^278319784 --- It seems like the whole thing would work just as well even if nobody ever read the Times or watched the cable chat shows. It’s a closed system. ^278319785 --- all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election ^278319786 --- There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their refutations. ^278319787 --- most of the stuff in the news isn’t of use, but occasionally you’ll come across some story that will lead you to actually change what you’ve been working on ^278319788 --- Most people’s major life changes don’t come from reading an article in the newspaper; they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are much more convincing and detailed. ^278319789 --- There’s a new report denying the confirmation of the denial of the unconfirmed report. ^278319790 --- Instead of watching hourly updates, why not read a daily paper? Instead of reading the back and forth of a daily, why not read a weekly review? Instead of a weekly review, why not read a monthly magazine? Instead of a monthly magazine, why not read an annual book? ^278319791 --- they could have read an entire book about most subjects covered and thereby learned about it with far more detail and far more impact than the daily doses they get dribbled out by the paper. ^278319792 --- news isn’t just a waste of time, it’s actively unhealthy. ^278319793 --- Edward Tufte notes that when he used to read the New York Times in the morning, it scrambled his brain with so many different topics that he couldn’t get any real intellectual work done the rest of the day. ^278319794 --- it actually gets most of those subjects wrong. ^278319795 --- This is not simply an essay meant to provoke; I genuinely believe what I write ^278319796 --- My life does not seem to be impoverished for it; indeed, I think it has been greatly enhanced. But I haven’t found many other people who are willing to take the plunge. ^278319797