Ask Lemmy

I listen to my body, which includes my mind. I start feeling bad physically or mentally, I disconnect and do something else.

I use an RSS reader to grab headlines from several sources. I read the headlines once in the morning and once in the evening. My goal is to know what is going on. As much as possible I try not to get too emotionally engaged during this process. I try to be informed without being outraged or depressed.

Read news

Get involved

Have a really good revolution

Stop ignoring your whole body telling you to resist

To do something about it

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 have a stance where I prefer to be minimally informed than misinformed. I will intake what little information I want before I am overstimulated from the poor state of journalism. I'm sorry but I have to be one of those headline readers and if it's very, very intriguing enough to want to read it, I will. But I really can't be bothered to read a lot of what's out there. I read the comments and reactions which arguably, has proven to be far more knowledgeable than the article in question.

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.

Oh shit. Drawing a line is a really good idea.

Really close to the stress. Checking out is giving up and it's a super weak move. Oh no you feel bad? People are losing their livelihoods. Their citizenships, their jobs. Buck up yo. We got shit to do.

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.

I actually had this issue months ago, I kept seeing everything on Instagram regarding a particular major problem. Seeing the deaths of innocents and the governments cheering it on just made me angry, moody, anxious and an immense hate towards humanity in general.

I was also jobless in these months (glad got work now) and that made it worse.

Eventually I heavily restricted myself;

• Only 30 mins of scroll in Instagram, checking the news and such.
• No talks about politics for at least a month.
• Read more books to dive in.
• Play fun games (Mario Wonder, Captain Toad Tracker, Mario kart and Catherine Full Body).

Got a job now but I still keep most of the things I restricted myself. Despite everything, I’m in a much better mindset than before.

You can read a list of news article titles and not go deep.

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.

I mostly read headlines but not articles. This is so that I can send emails to a family member who voted for this shit again. I throw in a one-liner that sarcastically alludes to the terrible story and a link with the headline in the subject. I'm super pissed that my mother voted for this asshole (again), so if the story is about dismantling the education dept, my comment would be: "Your grandkids go to a private school, so they're fine. Sucks to be a poor kid!"

Honestly, if I wasn't screaming at her (via email, not literally), I'd probably have to avoid altogether. But I believe it's necessary that she read about every possible terrible thing she invoked with her vote. Or, maybe more realistically, I'm just that mad at her even if she'll never change. Our relationship is likely over.

Sort what you know is predictable bs. For example, you know the bad actors are going to always say or do outrageous things for distraction. I use the uBlock Origin browser plugin with filters for “Trump” “Elon” “Maga” and most news sites have about 2 or 3 articles worth reading. Entries even get blanked on Lemmy. Instead of seeing “TRUMP, ELON, MAGA DO THIS!!!” You now see “Secretary of Defense halts Cybersecurity from offensive attacks on Russia” from a decent source. This narrows most news to either things that may affect you directly or helps you build a better informed opinion. Also, if you are in the US, take every opinion from the house of reps and the senate and throw it in the trash. Until they quit acting like children and begin negotiating like adults, they have absolutely nothing good to say. That’s a good chunk of the “news” right there. So when you see stuff like “REP INTRODUCES BILL TO …” just stop reading. If you care to look further look for the bill number and actually read it. Most of the time it’s really stupid crap tactics just to rile up the public. They have been doing that for well over a century. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

tl;dr: sort the troll news.

Lemmy is my line. Have one account just for politics, and another with everything but - that way I can control my exposure.

For me I disassociate. I know the people around me by and large love and/or care for me and if shit hit the fan I'm fine.

The news is just entertainment. I love watching the news. I love politics. Sometimes it's surreal and scary but in no ways do I feel worried. I worry for those around me because they may not be able to protect themselves due to age or capacity but then that's why I'm there if required.

I have subscribed to about a dozen daily news e-mails. I skim through them for half an hour every morning with my first coffee. Once time is up, delete the rest & move on w my day. Only exception is I do make a point to make sure I've read at least 1 liberal & 1 conservative viewpoint.

I use grund news to keep up to date. I use Lemmy to get enraged.

I stop reading when my brain starts hurting.

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”.

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.

It's not always the same over time. Currently, I read Lemmy and occasionally tagesschau.de (recently less, want to more again).

Web and text means I can scroll and read what I want, without dwelling to much on it (like video news, intro then video then expert interview or worse). I can skim, or read comment interpretation or summarization. I can comment and discuss.

I have this account for general, and a different on programming.dev. When I open that one I see no or few politics (that kind at least). Etc.

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/

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/

There is no line for me.

I'm incredibly fragile and seeing people ~~I care about~~ be hurt by all this hurts me incredibly much.

I'm now avoiding the news and doing my best to instead be a positive influence, help where I am able, offer support, donate what I can, etc.

I refuse to let evil fucking idiots steal my joy.

I prioritize staying informed over well-being. But I also don't trust everything I see. Which is the real reason (or one of them) why I mainly watch local news. I wouldn't be like "I don't want to see who among us is in danger of being nuked, nuclear bombs are so unsightly to watch". It is best to prepare for longer-term benefit.

Of important things you will get informed want it or not.

It's better to just pursue news on things you like and enjoy to avoid depression.

If news stress you out I would recommend to actually avoid them. It's what I do and I am still oversaturated with news, so there's no risk on being missinformed.

I stay uninformed but in the rare times I want to be up to date, financial news sources are pretty good, they cover world news briefly and their kind of clickbait is easy to ignore - they don't do rage bait but try to make you invest in something.