Then there was the first long trip for 2 months, and I realized that nothing is more annoying than political news from home. Especially the moment when everyone is outraged, they write whole essays on this topic, but no one does anything. As a result, you log into a social network to find out how your friends are doing, and a bucket of slop is poured out on you. And this flow is practically not interrupted.
And it would be fine if it were only political news! After all, the news is being selected — to be louder and more scandalous! Good news is rarely heard for a long time. But the bad ones have a high rating! And if you add the literary talent of journalists here, you can make a disaster out of so—so news - and immediately the rating rises!
You get upset, your mood deteriorates, productivity and life satisfaction levels drop. But everything else remains in its place.
So I just couldn't get past the Guardian article about why news is so bad. It makes us think again about what information we receive and start filtering it with even more diligence.
As I mentioned above, the news can spoil not only your mood, but also your health. Therefore, it is worth paying very close attention to what exactly and in what sources you read.
For example, you are reading the news that a bridge has collapsed, over which a car was just passing. What will the focus be on? Naturally, by car (or cars, if there were a lot of them), on who the driver was, where he was going, whether he managed to survive. After all, people are very emotional beings, they will worry, oohe—ahh and think about this person's family.
But what really needed to be focused on? Of course, on the bridge itself. On its construction characteristics. Why did it collapse? Maybe because the local authorities did not pay due attention to the condition of the bridge? Didn't repair it on time, violated the rules of operation? If so, then you can go to jail for this.
The news takes us on the wrong route. News about terrorist attacks, bank failures and plane crashes are overrated. And they are too underestimated about financial responsibility, the impact of stress on our body and ordinary people who do important work. Unfortunately, we cannot muffle this disturbing voice in our head, so the only option not to spoil our nerves is to reduce the absorption of this information. You can't refuse to fly planes, drive a car or use the services of banks in the modern world, can you?
Remember from what news of the last year you have learned something really useful for yourself? Something that helped you solve an important task or make the right decision concerning your life, your business or your career? Remember? If so, it is unlikely to be much, and during the day we read a lot of news. Conclusion: most of them do not carry important information for you.
But we are used to the news. They give us a sense of security and awareness, a sense of advantage (I know, but you don't!). And some people even begin to feel a certain anxiety, being cut off from the news stream for several days.
In fact, the less news you consume, the more specific you are compared to others, because you need to filter much less information, and the important one will reach you anyway.
News is just small bubbles that burst on the surface of a huge ocean-world. The news that reaches the press and that journalists subsequently bring to you is just a reflection of deeper processes. They don't reveal the essence because they just can't. And the more you focus on all these bubbles, the more muddy you see the overall picture of the world. The most important thing escapes you. Because you need to stop looking at bubbles on the surface and see what exactly causes them?
The news is constantly calling out to your limbic system. News about disasters and just disturbing messages stimulate the production of the stress hormone (cortisol), and it will not lead to anything good. Fear, depression, nervousness, digestive problems and susceptibility to infections are too high a price to pay for constantly being aware of everything, right?
The news feed is the mother of cognitive errors. According to Warren Buffett, a person tries to interpret all new information so that it confirms the conclusions already made. And the news exacerbates this shortcoming. We become overconfident, underestimate the risks and miss out on good opportunities. Our brain craves stories that have a hidden meaning, even if in fact they do not correspond to reality. We listen to the news and present it as it is more convenient for us, we find all visible and invisible evidence of our rightness. In general, we turn everything upside down, as long as it coincides with the picture that we have drawn ourselves.
Thinking requires concentration. Concentration takes a certain amount of time. The news is designed to constantly distract us. They are like viruses that steal your attention for their own needs. But there are worse things: news does not have a very favorable effect on our memory.
There are two types of memory. The long-term power is almost limitless. But short-term, working memory can not accommodate everything. In order for the information to be remembered for a long time, it needs to be understood, digested, and this is impossible without proper concentration of attention. The abundance of news does not allow us to focus on one thing. The situation is even worse with online news, since almost every article is crammed with links. We start jumping on them and somewhere on the 10th we forget about where, in fact, everything started and what we are doing here at all.
We love stories in development, we like to find out how things ended. And this need is quite difficult to ignore. That's just in our head we have hundreds of storylines…
Previously, it was believed that in adulthood, neurons do not form new connections. Now scientists have found out that this is not the case. The more news we consume, the more we train the neural connections responsible for multitasking and fluent consumption of information, forgetting about those responsible for concentration and thoughtful consumption. The more news there is, the less our ability to focus on one thing. And even avid book lovers, after they sit on the news needle, are not able to read more than 4-5 pages. They just get tired. And this is not because they have become older, but because the structure of their brain has changed.
You read or watch the news on TV for 15 minutes at breakfast. Then there's the news at lunch. And we must not forget about the evening reports. And if you also take into account the time that you spend during the working day in order to read the news that accidentally caught your eye in the social network feed, it turns out to be quite an impressive piece of time.
For the most part, news is overwhelming stories about events that we are not able to influence. They grind us until we get used to the idea of the fatality of everything that happens to us and the world around us and begin to take it all for granted. There is such a term "learned helplessness", which characterizes the unwillingness of a person or animal to change a hostile environment, even if there is such an opportunity. Thanks to the habit of watching the news, we accustom ourselves to this state.
News drives us into depression, makes us helpless and takes away the main resources of our memory. What kind of creativity can we talk about?!
It is impossible to completely abandon the news: after all, we live in a not very calm world and I would like to know when the time will come to escape. Do you want to keep up to date with events? Read not news, but serious analytical articles, listen to the right podcasts and talk to smart people who don't care about bubbles on the surface — they are interested in what is hidden in the depths.
