I wish there was a way to stay informed without the rage-bait delivery methods
deleted by creator
Shamelessly reposting this here, because it seems relevant:
Negative news has a greater impact on people than positive: https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf
Media sites know this, and use it to drive engagement:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01538-4
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/social-media-facebook-twitter-politics-b1870628.html
And so, negative headlines are getting worse: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0276367
But negative news is addictive and psychologically damaging: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news
So it’s important to try and stay positive:
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/benefits-of-good-news
If you want a break from the constant negativity, here are some sites that report specifically on positive news:
- https://www.goodgoodgood.co/
- https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
- https://fixthenews.com/
- https://positivenewsfoundation.org/
- https://www.onlygoodnewsdaily.com/
And here’s 35 more: https://news.feedspot.com/good_news_websites/
Or videos, if you’d prefer: https://youtube.com/@itssambentley
Some communities on Lemmy you might be interested in:
- !lemmybewholesome@lemmy.world
- !goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
- !upliftingnews@lemmy.world
- https://lemmy.world/c/hopeposting
- https://lemmy.world/c/worldinprogress
- https://lemmy.world/c/climatehope
Remember, realistic optimism is important and, unlike what some might have you believe, is not the same as blissful ignorance or ‘burying your head in the sand’: https://www.learning-mind.com/realistic-optimism-blind-positivity/
https://www.centreforoptimism.com/realisticoptimism
And doesn’t mean you must stay uninformed on current affairs: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/how-to-stop-doom-scrolling
https://goodable.co/blog/tips-for-balancing-positive-and-negative-news/
I’m from Germany. I subscribe to a decent weekly newspaper (“die Zeit”) and follow German news sites. I try to stay away from news on social media, but that’s hardly possible.
On Lemmy, I’ve mainly blocked keywords and names relating to US politics because the ridiculous bullshit from the White House is unbearable. Despite this, my feed is still full of the stupid drivel from Trump & Co. This is not news, but at best political soap opera entertainment far removed from reality.
Because this stupid stuff potentially affects me too, of course, I have subscribed to a decent monthly newspaper with an international focus (“Le Monde diplomatique”). I can’t stand US politics in particular any other way.
Here’s the thing I’ve discovered over the past two months. You can block every keyword you can think of involving politics and you will still be subject to them in memes that don’t happen to mention the keywords, comments where the blocking isn’t effective, and friends and spouses mentioning them, if not more. Politics pop up in every context. Video game YouTube, programming subjects on hacker news, pretty much every single subject at this point in time is inundated with politics.
For a long time I was the most informed person in my social circle. I can’t deal with it anymore. I blocked every mention I could think of and yet I still think I’m just as informed as everyone else in my circle, at least to a certain extent.
You can’t avoid it. So block everything and you’ll still be informed.
I stick to few sources that generally cover major without the doom and gloom. Generally YouTube channels are pretty good imo.
-
TLDR News (UK, EU and Global) is a great series of channels for that.
-
Caspian report on YouTube for some geopolitics/strategic outlook.
-
Real life lore for couple of deep dives on non-current issues.
-
Money and Macro for macro economic news.
-
Just have a think for climate science and energy transition news.
-
“Good news” is just nice feelgood news.
Traditional media for closely following elections when they come out such as exit polls.
For the Gaza issue I did break the cycle and check on Al Jazeera which is the best for middle East news.
-
Slow news.
Seriously, you don’t need to know all of this shit every day. I do a weekly catch up on Saturday and indont think I’ve ever missed anything important. If anything some times gives news to clear up.
I vaccilate between “Eh, world and my life were always a mess, we could do with a do-over” and “holy shit holy shit holy shit is that a nuke in the distance?”. Multiple times daily. Shit’s exhausting.
Tried to filter out as much stuff that I find annoying as possible and block things as well. It doesn’t get everything unfortunately but it gets close. I think the only thing that could make it better would be some kind of image scanning filter that would remove things from the feed if it detected them in a posted image or a website preview.
I log out when I start feeling helpless and high anxiety and then I go find things that I can control to feel less helpless/anxious.
So far, I’ve stayed in the know on every god damned thing, even going deep enough in some cases to explore the damage caused. It’s stressful, but somebody has to do it and I’m someone less impacted than the targets of this insanity (although I’ve dated a transfem for years and am trained in education policy, so obviously the news gets to me on a personal level).
One lesson about stress: you’ve got three ways to cope: (1) you address the source of the stress (or at least feel like you’re doing something, like protesting). (2) You ignore it with distractions, which is perfectly fine if it’s out of your control, (3) you reframe it, such as “this will pass” or “there’s still good in the world”, etc… All three will reduce stress.
We all do all three, and whichever one you find yourself doing is fine. For example, I feel good by trying to share my knowledge and convince my students to give a shit; I still play video games to relax; and I have told myself plenty of times that, while it’s bad (very, very bad), that as long as we survive we can build back our institutions (and believe me, the DoE is both important and deeply flawed-- as someone who survived a failed k-12 education and got a PhD in spite of it, education reform has always been my dream).
You didn’t mention compartmentalization. 🤔
Well, those three things are what a psych teacher told me in community college like, way before I sought out my degree. Not that that should be a ding against her, she taught at pretty competitive 4 years, too.
That said, yours could just be a different framework (e.g. PTSD literature). I personally don’t think that works very well, as it represses the emotion (much like ignoring it would do). You could also argue physical exercise and deep breaths work, too, but again, that’s another framework and one that’s generally taught along with aggression literature.
Damn. You know your stuff well enough that I’m not going to waste your time doing a bit. It was probably funnier in my head anyway.
Heh, probably just needed a more extreme example, like healing crystals. But man, even that ends up tested by researches if for no other reason but to debunk it, lol.
You can read a list of news article titles and not go deep.
I avoid getting political news from social media, including Lemmy. I don’t subscribe to any political communities. Once in a while I’ll scroll through all active posts to find new communities. But when I do that I know I’m going to run into political stuff and skip over it.
While most of the political posts on both Reddit and Lemmy lean the same way politically as I do, they can often be sensationalized so I have a general distrust of those stories. If something does happen to grab my attention I try to look it up from a reputable news source.
I use Apple News to track current events. I even pay out money for their “News+”. It aggregates many news sources. I can block sources I don’t want to see, and more importantly I can add a list of favorites news sources for quick viewing and to encourage those sources to take priority in my feed. As for my sources I try to pick the most boring and bland news organizations available. Think PBS, NPR, Reuters, etc.
Nothings perfect but this has been working for me for over a year now. I feel reasonably well informed without a lot of the drama.
Apple News isn’t perfect. I still get pushed a lot of celebrity gossip news no matter how many times I click “suggest less”.
Few things that are in the news are actually newsworthy, it just appears to me to be a lot of noise and only a small part of it will actually happen. Especially in politics given the lard in the oval Office, most of the things he does is just trying to grab attention, stil dangerous but a filter is needed.
Basically my desire to be informed is in opposition to the need to remain sane.
I have all major news sources and US politics tags blocked on Mastodon. I also continually block subs focused on US news here on Lemmy.
Frankly, I don’t trust news media or any kind. The purpose of those publications is to make sure they’re distributed as widely as possible to sell ads. So I don’t look at them unless I have to.
I do, however, follow some local chatter for my city, as the relevant news is there.
Personally I feel I manage to still stay informed, since anything of real importance will break through my block list anyway.
The purpose of those publications is to make sure they’re distributed as widely as possible to sell ads
Agree: For-profit journalism has screwed-up incentives. Not-for-profit journalism does tend to be different.
Personally I feel I manage to still stay informed, since anything of real importance will break through my block list anyway.
So you’re relying on those around you to keep you informed, despite blocking news on social media and not reading news yourself? Bold choice.
I suppose I still don’t trust the not-for-profit outlets either. Non-profit status, at least in the US, is a matter of taxes rather than one of morals.
And, yes, I do end up relying on people around me to hear about things for the first time, but I can and do look into things further from there.
There are pros and cons for this, of course, but I feel a lot calmer without the constant stream of doom in my life.
It’s also a matter of motivations. I’m not saying nonprofit status confers automatic trustworthiness, but they are missing the major incentives for sensationalism that for-profit outlets are.
That’s true. My cynicism is pretty personal. I’ve worked for a corrupt nonprofit in the past.
Lemmy is my line. Have one account just for politics, and another with everything but - that way I can control my exposure.
