
'Doomscrolling' breeds anxiety –  how to stop the cycle - mrfusion
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/19/892728595/your-doomscrolling-breeds-anxiety-here-s-how-to-stop-the-cycle
======
zozin
I deleted my Twitter a few months ago and my life is better for it. The need
to be “in the know” was powerful, but I realized that I was consuming vast
amounts of shallow information that resulted in shallow, uninformed opinions.
I’ve been reading a lot more long-form articles and books; I’ve finished
reading three books in the last month or so. When my Twitter habit was strong
I would often start a book and give up 30-50 pages in, never to return.

I believe deleting Twitter also helped my mood. I am feeling more upbeat than
ever. While circumstantial, I do attribute some of this change to no longer
being bombarded by the negativity and one-shot-kill Tweets that are prolific
on the platform.

~~~
lostmsu
The problem I've been facing recently is that long form also turns out to be a
waste of time after you go through the most informational/influential pieces.

Lots of the articles thread the same water, dive into totally unnecessary
details, or just tell a story that, while fascinating, does not really give
you any important new information, or bury it in a few casual sentences, never
elaborating on them.

For books it is usually just the same story told over and over again with the
character names and forms changed.

That applies even to some of the stuff recommended directly here on HN. I
would not even dive into aggregators recommended here.

~~~
411111111111111
> _For books it is usually just the same story told over and over again with
> the character names and forms changed._

actual _new_ things are by definition rare. each thing can only be done _once_
for all of humanity. after that, its an iterative process with the occasional
leap forward.

if you're thinking about technical or even worse self-help books: yes - there
are very few that actually bring anything worthwhile to the table. thats
simply because it becomes common knowledge if its correct to a degree where it
has a significant effect.

if you're however thinking of story-books than ... you're just reading similar
things. there is _a lot_ of written stories around - they admittedly usually
have things like `conversation` in common, but how else would you write a
book? by leaving everything blank?

~~~
lostmsu
> how else would you write a book

Maybe you don't.

[https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html](https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)

~~~
birdyrooster
But then how could you fulfill your childhood dreams? This is all very
important!!

/s

------
ersii
As of a hundred comments, none seem to have mentioned that this is not
inherent in _social_ media but in media in general.

Remember to take breaks from the news cycles (whatever flavor of news and
outlet you prefer) and try to not get emotionally engaged in what is really
quite distant from your actual life.

The news, wherever they come from and regardless of what they are about are
mostly just a distraction from what actually matters, your own life, family
and mission.

~~~
mumblemumble
I realize this trick won't work for everyone, but a couple years ago I figured
out a nice technique to combat all these problems, while still allowing myself
to read the news: I made a pact with myself to only actively consume the news
in a language I don't speak fluently.

If nothing else, I'm improving my language skills, so the time spent doing it
is edifying, even when the piece itself isn't. The concentration involved in
deciphering the article inserts some emotional distance that helps me not to
get too worked up about what I'm reading. And, since reading in a language one
doesn't understand very well is tiring, the whole exercise is self-limiting.
It's literally impossible to get sucked in.

------
lilyball
A few weeks ago I identified doomscrolling, particularly in bed, as a major
source for my recent sleeping issues. As a result, I took a major step back
from Twitter in general, and especially forced myself to stop reading Twitter
in bed, or even in the late evenings. This produced an immediate improvement
in both sleep quality and overall mood.

~~~
rv-de
In my experience reading on the smartphone is an underrated cause of sleep
issues. No matter what I read and no matter how dimmed and red my screen looks
- it certainly helps - but it still impacts my sleep negatively. The desire to
keep your mind busy even right before or actually while intending to fall
asleep is also an indicator for other underlying issues. If I stop engaging in
these distractions I get a chance to actually face those and deal with them.

~~~
lilyball
Distractions in general hurt sleep. I'm not convinced using the phone is any
different than other distractions. Of course, sleep researchers say that doing
anything at all in bed other than sleep and sex is a bad idea, but distracting
yourself while not in bed too isn't helpful.

Naturally, I ignore that advice and still use my phone in bed. But switching
from Twitter to doing other stuff helped significantly, because I can monitor
myself and put the phone down when I get calm enough and sleepy enough to
sleep. Twitter was preventing me from getting calm/sleepy due to producing
anxiety. I do still read Discord, which sometimes can have the Twitter problem
depending on what people are talking about, but it helps me keep from feeling
completely socially disconnected due to using Twitter less.

------
septimus111
I have started unsubscribing to any subreddit the moment I notice a post is
generating a negative emotion. Nowadays my feed is mostly woodworking, cooking
and photography.

~~~
0xdeadb00f
I get it, I really do. Negativity is shit.

The world is a messed up place. Sure, we shouldn't be bombarded by this fact
day in and day out, but I personally think it's a good thing to remind
yourself now and then how fucked up the world we live in can be - to maintain
a sort of tether to the "reality" of the world's current messed up situation;
it puts a lot into perspective.

Any thoughts? Am I wrong for thinking this way? (P.s. I have not yet read the
OP's article)

~~~
blablabla123
I agree with you. Actually I watch news regularly since my childhood and I've
also heard the sentence "I don't want to see this (people suffering), this is
terrible" Basically this would be actively looking away.

The world is indeed a pretty messed up place and it's sad we need Corona to be
reminded of a lot of long-standing issues as they affect also other groups
now:

\- lack of universal health insurance/insufficient social support systems

\- lack of pandemic plans

\- precarious living conditions are more prevalent than represented by
social/news media

Actually very few news outlets even attempt to give global coverage, BBC is
the only one I know of that somehow gets close to this.

Still, I try to consume news more responsibly. I stopped using Google News and
instead subscribed to a handful of online papers/magazines that produce
quality content.

~~~
YinglingLight
>Actually very few news outlets even attempt to give global coverage, BBC is
the only one I know of that somehow gets close to this.

Far fewer still, are news outlets covering child sex trafficking. But hey, "I
don't want to see this, this is terrible, let's call it a conspiracy and move
on".

------
countername
Yeah reading hacker news since 4 hours and didn't even planned to open it. Now
the world is more dangerous and don't know if people are commenting or GPT-3
bots.

Any solutions to find sleep?

~~~
moultano
Read a really charming and escapist novel. Worst case, you end up staying up
too late because the book is so good, but I haven't found anything more
reliable for making me disconnect from the world and its churning.
Substituting a book for Twitter for the hour before bed has markedly improved
the overall quality of my life.

To get yourself into the habit, don't read anything on your "to read someday
list of important books." Just pick the most notorious page turner you can
think of.

~~~
dbtc
I recommend Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

~~~
unknownkadath
Whoa, slow down there, Satan.

~~~
dvtrn
?? What?

Blood Meridian has dark moments in the narrative sure, but it’s a
_beautifully_ written book and _very_ easy spaghetti western adventure to get
lost in before bed. It’s not like you’re dozing off reading The Necronomicon,
c’mon.

~~~
prawn
It's my favourite book but it's hardly easy-reading for many people. It's grim
and would challenge a few people I bet. I could read writing like that about
the desert forever, but not everyone is so inclined.

I think everyone should read it, but I can also appreciate an "easy there,
Satan"-type joke about it!

~~~
ssully
Yeah, I've read most of Cormac McCarthy's books, but I've never gotten past
the first 50 pages of Blood Meridian. Even compared to Child of God, it just
hit me in the wrong ways whenever I read it. Still hoping to get to it someday
though!

~~~
prawn
Commit to it. It's sublime.

Last one I read was Suttree while over in the US camping in the South-East.

------
danfritz
I use the following golden advice: don't bring your phone in the bedroom.

We bought a simple digital alarm clock and suddenly we both slept way better
and didn't had any trouble to fall asleep.

Reading a book also helps putting your mind in an off state.

------
iliketosleep
Social media is addictive by design and it's easy to slip into these bad
habits. Gloomy, sensational news/opinions is good for "engagement" metrics and
that's what people inevitability find themselves drowning in if they don't
create clear boundaries around usage.

At times, I've become so miserable from it that I've had to jump into a cold
shower to snap out of the doom and gloom. Thankfully, the cold shower usually
works and provides incentive not to fall into the habit again.

------
lanerobertlane
I found my way to escape doomscrolling is to never user the homepage of
Twitter. Instead I have lists set up for Friend, Interests (People who tweet
science / tech news), and News outlets. I then bookmark those 3 lists, and
only read the first 2 unless I WANT to read the latest news. I never seen 99%
of the people I'm following, trends or adverts, I just see what I want to see
on the platform.

------
unnouinceput
Quote: "Karen Ho, a finance reporter for Quartz, has been tweeting about
doomscrolling every day over the past few months, often alongside a gentle
nudge to stop and engage in healthier alternatives."

Now that right there is a finesse irony

------
dkthehuman
If you want help setting limits, I made an extension called Intention that
many people find helpful:
[https://www.getintention.com/](https://www.getintention.com/)

HN thread of its launch:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22936742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22936742)

------
nercury
Unfollow anyone who retweets outrage tweets, or posts low-effort content,
follow people who post original, high effort content, and never go to the
twitter's home page -- read only the latest tweets in chronological order.
This will considerably reduce tweets that target emotional triggers or simply
waste time.

------
sawaruna
Maybe people should utilize social media for things they enjoy instead of
solely sources of news. Of course people you follow will end up posting news
anyway but it won’t be solely stream of ‘doom and gloom’.

~~~
dgzl
I think news takes more of a front seat these days. Lots of history in the
making.

~~~
pests
History will always be in the making.

~~~
jacobolus
Sure, but sometimes the history involves a superpower teetering on the brink
of fascist dictatorship, or a once-in-a-century pandemic wreaking havoc around
the world. Events that will define the space of possibilities for decades to
come.

At those times it’s a bit more important to stay at least partially informed
than when the biggest crisis is a new highway project going over budget or a
political leader’s extramarital affairs.

~~~
TMWNN
>Sure, but sometimes the history involves a superpower teetering on the brink
of fascist dictatorship

Boy, did you miss the point of the article and discussion

~~~
jacobolus
In a nutshell, the article says that reading a lot of scary news causes
anxiety, and if you listen to your therapist and steeply limit that reading
and spend your time eating ice cream and watching cat videos instead, you can
reduce that anxiety.

Sometimes anxiety (fear, rage) is well justified. Sometimes large-scale
threats are real.

------
MrYellowP
This article really only touches the surface of the issue and, despite hinting
at deeper problems, refuses to acknowledge them.

A potentially endless stream of seamlessly accessible information (aka
continuous scrolling down) is bad, not because of the content read, but
because it manages to manipulate the user into going on and on and on and on.

The article touches on that tangentially ...

> Aldao, the director of Together CBT, a clinic that specializes in cognitive
> behavioral therapy, has worked with her patients to cut back on
> doomscrolling.

... but fails to point out that the conclusion is not to control which content
is being taken in, but to ban doomscrolling altogether, because it's some form
of automaticity making you more perceptible to being psychologically
manipulated.

That's why it's so successful and that's why it's so bad.

That's why patients are being treated with CBT, because apparently that's what
it takes to get her to stop doing it _instead of her simply stopping doing
it_. She simply can't.

------
softwaredoug
I have found it useful to RTFAs on Twitter/Facebook, not just read the
clickbait, anxiety inducing headlines.

Not always, but many stories have some nuance that’s missing in social media
outrage and replies.

Like I said, not always, but it does help anxiety to get all the facts.
Especially when I ruminate on something after seeing just the headline or the
replies.

------
skwb
From my own personal experience: back in March, when COVID started getting out
of control, I found myself desperately trying to get access to more and better
information from experts in the field. I turned to twitter, to try to get more
and better information on the subject. This inevitably turned into
'doomscrolling'.

I felt that there was a lot of nuanced scientific opinions that reporters were
doing a poor job of communicating. I get that often deeply technical topics
are complicated, but I think more than anything else COVID has helped how
unprepared media has been in communicating these complex topics.

And it's not just COVID; it's been a range of subjects such as law (Trump's
immigration ban) and elections (in particular the 2020 Democratic primary and
all the media coverage over Bloomberg's supposed supremacy in the race). I
think overall journalists are well intentioned and can be trusted in most
situations, but it's clear to me that there are systemic failures in
communicating complex subjects.

------
mensetmanusman
I love HN because there is no risk of doomscrolling.

Articles here point to the real diversity of what is happening.

~~~
abootstrapper
I love HN too, but I'm dubious it "points to the real diversity of what is
happening." It mostly just has politics turned down to 2-3 out of 10.

------
swiley
I remember someone I knew in college who read twitter a lot. It made him angry
all the time and kind of unpleasant to be around. Eventually he quit and was
much happier. I wish my mom would do that.

------
lemming
I need Twitter for support for my product, but I don't really use it that
often. So a while ago I set it up to be basically write-only: I use Zapier to
send me emails for @mentions and relevant search terms, and I reply to those
from a TweetBot instance which only has columns for mentions and the same
search terms. So I can reply if something needs replying to and send product
updates, but otherwise I don't see Twitter at all. It's been a huge time saver
and mental health improvement.

------
xwdv
Doomscrolling at least is passive. The active version I think would be
“Doomsaying”, which I have become addicted to I feel.

Going through my comment history, I often find it littered with comments that
give a sense of hopelessness and inevitable misery. Highly cynical, sometimes
toxic, wouldn’t feel out of place among the lamentations of the undying. Not
sure how I got this way, but probably came after a long history of
doomscrolling.

------
centv
While I wish I have more will power to actually stay away from my phone,
especially at bedtime, the second best solution I found useful is to set
timers for addictive apps. If I use up the allotted time for an app, it will
be disabled for the rest of the day. Also there is Focus mode on Android that
disables distracting apps while working.

------
troughway
You’re better off unplugging entirely. Forgo all forms of news and pop media
for at least 6 months and focus on your life. You’ll be happier and you’ll get
shit done.

I think a lot of this has to do with the West not really doing anything to
address death. It’s out of sight and out of mind, so when it’s knocking at our
door we are feeble minded and scared because we are ignorant of the cycle of
life and death. Everyone you know will die, but confronting this fact head on
breeds a very existentialist kind of anxiety that we’ve failed to address in
our societies.

This is the underpinning of doomer type behaviour. Eastern philosophy tends to
have meditations where people remind themselves every day that today might be
their last. You might think this sort of thinking breeds depression, mental
illness, etc, but it works out for them very well.

The West could learn a lot from this, but alas that’s a pipe dream.

~~~
geofft
There is certainly a Western philosophical/religious tradition of meditating
on death, for what it's worth. It's why I love Lent and the traditions/rituals
around it - "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Here's a very contemporary take on it that I came across recently, blending
the eremitic nature of the Covid lockdown and the cause of praying for those
who have died of it: [http://www.stbedeproductions.com/office-of-the-dead-
revisite...](http://www.stbedeproductions.com/office-of-the-dead-revisited/)

You might also enjoy _The Slavery of Death_ by Richard Beck, who blends his
training in clinical psychology with his religious background to argue
basically what you're arguing - that we try very hard to pretend death doesn't
exist and that it works poorly - and from there argues that our fear of death
should be understood as the primary problem of humans from a theological
perspective, and that sin is a result of that fear, not a root cause. (He does
draw on Eastern Orthodox thought to make that point, but I think that's not as
far east as you mean by "Eastern," if I understand you right.)

~~~
makomk
Yeah, I think it's specifically the _modern, secular West_ that has this
terrified, anxious relationship with death. The more religious communities
seem to think about it much the same way as they always did, and people on
social media keep using this to make clever gotcha arguments about how
religious people aren't really "pro life" because they're not desperately
freaking out about death and trying to stave it off however they can during
the pandemic. Somewhere along the line, the idea that death is an inevitable
part of life and that sometimes trying to desperately stop it no matter what
is a futile act of hubris became so alien to parts of the population that they
can't even understand how anyone could think that way.

------
ck425
One thing I found useful was installing Sudoku on my phone. If I feel the urge
for a dopamine hit from the internet I play a have of Sudoku instead. It gives
me a hit but without the anxiety and I find the focused thinking it causes
very helpful if I'm procrastinating.

------
guybedo
This is the reason why I added a sentiment filter to the rss reader I built.
Now I can put together a few rss feeds in a folder and filter out bad news,
needs some more work but it gives good results already. (Https://aktu.io)

------
Ensorceled
There are a lot of suggestions for "long form" and "books" here. Are none of
you keeping up with this pandemic and what your country/state/city recommended
behaviours, laws and bylaws are?

~~~
chrisseaton
You can switch on the radio once a day for half an hour and get a full update
while you make breakfast or something - doesn’t need any more than that
really. And no chance of commenting!

~~~
Ensorceled
That makes sense. I'm confused by the people who are saying "I _only_ consume
long form" or "I _only_ read books".

If they said, "I dropped facebook/twitter and now get my news in short bursts
from the radio"; I would have thought them wise.

------
whywhywhywhy
The worst part is the moment you realise Twitter wants you to feel this way,
they could actually only feed you positive things but instead they see it as
their moral imperative to push this anxiety on you.

------
quickthrower2
My problem is scrolling, doom or otherwise.

~~~
jgtrosh
I'm curious if there's any existing effort to provide media on smartphones
without scrolling. Not just “non-infinite scroll”, actually no scroll. Like,
you have a page of text and to get to the next you swipe to flip, or tap a
region (like on ereaders).

~~~
quickthrower2
I think that would be an excellent addition to the iOS Safari reader mode,
where your intent is already to change the behaviour and look of the web page.
That reader mode has saved me from a really badly formatted web page many
times.

------
stjohnswarts
Yeah I hate this. I signed up for 1 email newsletter, axios, for a morning and
evening update. Thats plenty of news. You just have to quit cold turkey if
thats not enough. If your on facebook you can use plugins like facebook purity
to filter out 90% of the junk. That's the only social media that I actually
pay attention to. I'm sure there are other filter programs for twitter and
similar out there.

------
unknownkadath
I got a Nokia 8110 4g to use as a secondary phone during not-work times. Can't
browse much on a phone with a tabless browser. Also, it is very 90s cool.

------
ManlyBread
This is something I noticed a while ago. Some people just seem to be addicted
to the feeling of impending doom. It's really tiring because the most of these
topics are akin to someone standing with a sign saying "the doom is right
around the corner" but then it turns out that around that corner there's just
an another dude with the exact same sign.

------
parliament32
"Focus on what you can control" addresses the root of the problem. It's good
to know what's going on in the world, but there's no point in stressing over
it. I know it can be hard, but once you convince yourself these things aren't
worth your energy things get a lot more pleasant.

------
freen
The circumference of the situational threat awareness of a deer is around 100
meters.

For the vast bulk of the human experiences, our approximate level of
situational threat awareness wasn’t all that much different.

It’s unsurprising that unmediated, we expand that circumference and
simultaneously experience a proportional increase in our general level of
anxiety.

------
tomduncalf
I definitely found myself wasting more time recently scrolling through Twitter
e.g. in the evening or when compiling code. I actually quite like the site but
I find there's more and more irrelevant stuff on my feed so I don't really
like feel like I get as much value from it, yet the addictive nature of the
feed still makes you refresh it.

I was aware I was doing this but didn't do anything about it until I was
prompted by this article, which I think was posted on here recently:
[https://craigmod.com/essays/how_i_got_my_attention_back/](https://craigmod.com/essays/how_i_got_my_attention_back/).
For me it really hit the nail on the head about wanting to reclaim your
attention a bit, but that these companies have thousands of people working on
systems to try and claim your attention for themselves, so it's no wonder it's
hard.

I made a few small changes as a result of this:

\- I used Screen Time on my iPhone to block all apps except essential ones
(clock, calendar, notes, Philips Hue) for the first hour of my day

\- I logged out of Twitter on my Firefox and instead logged into it in a
container tab, which takes a few extra clicks to open

\- I logged out of Twitter on my iPhone, so I have to log in to access it

\- I didn't install Twitter on my new iPad

I've found these changes have made a big difference - I think particularly
blocking apps in the morning. It feels like if you can "control" your
attention a bit more in the first part of your day, that continues somewhat
throughout the day, then adding in the slight hurdles to access the site
throughout the day causes you to stop and think "do I really want to do this?"
when your reflex to just open a new tab and type "tw<enter>" or to scroll
while you're stood in a queue or whatever kicks in.

I still do browse Twitter and other time wasting sites a little bit, which I'm
fine with, but I feel like I'm doing it more conciously - sometimes after a
long day I'll think "I just fancy sitting on the sofa and reading the news and
looking on Twitter" and I'm fine with that, as it's something I've chosen to
do.

It's only been a few weeks so I don't want to speak too soon, but I'm feeling
really happy with this approach so far, without having to go atomic and delete
Twitter entirely as I do get some value from it.

------
titzer
See "The Program Dependence Graph and Its Use in Optimization"

[https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~pingali/CS395T/2009fa/papers/ferr...](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~pingali/CS395T/2009fa/papers/ferrante87.pdf)

------
nightcracker
> Still, you incessantly scroll though bottomless doom-and-gloom news for
> hours as you sink into a pool of despair. This self-destructive behavior has
> become so common that a new word for it has entered our lexicon:
> "doomscrolling."

Imagine having the guts to call a behavior "self-destructive" when you are
directly complicit in that behavior, and knowingly contribute to the effect by
having a doomsayer bias for better clickbait.

Look no further than the current NPR frontpage to expose the hypocrisy: "The
End Of $600 Unemployment Benefits Will Hit Millions Of Households And The
Economy"

They know the effect that titles such as these have on people, yet they
continue. It's as if a food vendor laces their food with heroin and then claim
repeat customers are being "self-destructive".

~~~
Ensorceled
Do you have a suggestion for a "non-hypocritical" title for that article? Or
are you saying NPR shouldn't be reporting on the cessation of one of the few
pandemic response programs that help the average person?

~~~
chrisseaton
That title’s editorialised.

How about just ‘$600 Unemployment Benefit Scheme to End’?

~~~
yungmodulus
It seems like you’re using “editorialised” as a pejorative, but I don’t
necessarily understand how it’s negative. Nothing about the headline is
hyperbolic or an exaggeration.

The string of events from “unsafe to work” —> “cannot work” / “went to work
sick” —> “no benefits” does have a direct impact on the economy, unless I’m
missing some section there.

~~~
chrisseaton
> It seems like you’re using “editorialised” as a pejorative

No it's a dispassionate statement of fact.

Sometimes when I'm choosing not to get too wound up in current events I just
want to know what's going on expressed in the simplest way possible. A
briefing. I'm sure their opinion here on the impact is extremely sensible, but
sometimes I'm not interested in anyone's opinions, no matter how obvious or
sensible.

This thread was about how to avoid getting involved in people's opinions and
just learning the essential facts that you may have to do something about,
like a new law to wear a mask, wasn't it?

------
Void_
I built an app to limit browsing on my Mac... Been perfectly happy without
reading the news.

[https://focuslite.app](https://focuslite.app)

------
rapnie
Interesting that the "More Stories From NPR" right below the article is a
clear invitation to continue your doomscroll-workout. /s

------
harimau777
Does anyone have suggestions for sources of more positive short to medium form
reading material?

------
sputr
I would like to challenge the idea of "being informed".

So I went through some health issues in the last few months and I had to
radically lower my stress (used to be in politics - that thing will kill you
;) ). So I "unplugged". No media, no social media. No talking politics.

It was like a MASSIVE weight was lifted of my brain. I looked around and
realized ... I, at that moment, was a bright spot in a sea of darkness.

Everybody was depressed, anxious. The only thing anybody is talking about is
how bad things are. Try looking for movies or TV shows to watch ... that are
NOT dark/depressing/negative/cynical etc. You'll have a VERY hard time finding
them today. I've gone back to watching old movies and TV shows from better
times. We're living in dark times. Literally.

So, back to my challenge:

World has changed and the ROI of "staying informed" has changed. Specifically,
the PERSONAL cost (effects on your mental and physical health, quality of
life, quality of relationships etc.) has changed - it is now astronomically
high. We all "know" that social media and media companies are spending
ridiculous amounts of capital devising ever better ways to keep their "users"
stressed so that they keep coming back and keep staying on their platforms.

But the "users" are US. And we're also the ones paying for it. With our
health. With our quality of life. With our happiness.

So .. is it worth it?

Let's think about it. Will you knowing every daily-politics titbit really ...
change anything? Has it ever in the last few decades? So why pay the PERSONAL
COST of knowing what [insert crazy person from other side] said today?

What I propose will be good for your, personally, but I would argue, will also
be better for democratic political systems: take a step back.

If you're not ACTIVELY FIGHTING A POLITICAL BATTLE RIGHT THIS WEEK then you
don't need to know what's going on this week. You don't need more then 10
minutes every week/ every two weeks to pickup any and ALL news that's actually
relevant to you. If something big happens in the meantime ... trust me, you'll
know. People will tell you.

But what does ACTIVELY mean. Well first it means you IN THE FIGHT, your
spending non-trivial amount of effort lobbying, organizing political groups
etc. Most of you are NOT in the fight. But even if you think you are ... as
was I ... there's a second parameter: can you win? Do you really have the
Minimum Required Resources to even have a chance? Because you probably don't.
Most modern "grass roots" groups don't. I know, I lost years to this mistake.
Nothing wrong with that - it just means you should be focusing on getting the
Minimum Required Resources first. But there's the catch: social media
companies, with their numbers of likes, irrelevant impression numbers and the
like are giving you a _feeling_ like your changing something. But you're not,
you really aren't.

So, step back. See the bullshit of the standard Divide and rule[1]/Bread and
circuses[2] propaganda, that's keeping you distracted so you don't notice the
big trends that ACTUALLY matter.

So step back. Stop spending your emotional energy on daily outrages. Spend a
few minutes a week following the big trends so you know who to support when it
comes down to it.

Now for my most radical proposition: the only thing that really matters in
politics is money. Those who _spend_ money to rule ... rule. No, taxes don't
count as you're not the one spending that money.

So spend some money. First support some NGOs who are ACTUALLY fighting (with
lobbyists and policy proposals) for the big picture stuff you care about. Then
support a party or a candidate that listen to those NGOs. Make sure to tell
them so and to switch your support when they go astray.

Then unplug for a week.. The world of politics will still be there next week.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses)

------
tastytacos
Great to have a name for the problem.

------
creato
I don't like the implication that mental health is just feeling good. Maybe if
more people would read and understand the news, _and feel bad about it_ ,
they'd be willing to do even trivial things like wear a mask.

In my opinion, good mental health should be considered to be that your
feelings align with reality. If reality sucks, it's not mentally unhealthy to
feel bad about it. Feeling bad should spur making changes to make it better.

~~~
cameldrv
If you were paying close attention to the news in Feb-April, you were being
told not to wear a mask.

~~~
creato
Even if it were as simple as you make it sound, which I disagree with: _so
what?_ Our understanding of the world improves over time.

~~~
cameldrv
Not really. Almost all of the research that supports masking was done years
ago. I spent March getting shouted down in various places because I read that
research and concluded that people should be wearing masks. It took a machine
learning researcher of all people to bring people around to what was obvious
to anyone who spent a few hours reading scientific research.

The average reporter for a newspaper simply doesn't have the time to actually
understand a topic. They talk to a few people, and with the current political
environment, everything they hear is agenda driven.

Spend your information gathering time in a more productive way. If you really
feel you need to be up to date, read the week in review section of one of the
national newspapers.

------
sys_64738
Why take a cellphone into the bedroom when you're trying to sleep? Just don't
do it if you are weak to the temptation of doing it if you do take it into
your bedroom.

~~~
Fnoord
I put mine on quiet (basic Android feature) during sleep time, and its my
alarm in the morning. It also gets charged overnight, and in case of emergency
I can call emergency services. Its a no-brainer to take my smartphone with me
to bed.

------
EarthIsHome
> You see that coronavirus infections are up. Maybe your kids can't go back to
> school. The economy is cratering.

Anxiety is a normal response to these external pressures. And anxiety isn't
going to go away until we address these pressures.

I'll throw in some other amxiety-inducing but solvable external pressures:
homelessness, affording rent or health insurance, being forced to choose
between going to work and getting coronavirus vs getting fired,
precariousness, and so on.

------
clairity
the hypocrisy of this story is thick, from a news organization where every
other story (and that's not much of an exaggeration) is about how we're all
going to die from covid because _everyone else_ is being a jerk in endlessly
various ways.

but to their credit, they did air a story recently featuring maria hinojosa,
founder/host of latino usa and the first latina host at npr, that was not
especially kind to npr itself (spoiler: she left and was more successful as a
result).

~~~
0xy
Not to mention the journalistic malpractice of calling victims of being
threatened with a firearm and having their vehicle attacked randomly "right-
wing extremists", and then wiping the evidence of their false allegations from
the internet without retracting or apologizing for it. The individuals who
attacked the victims were charged by police. [1] [2]

NPR is in the same class as the rest of the mainstream media who don't bother
to vet stories they lather with political bias.

[1]
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbEIlsUUcAACYht?format=jpg&name=...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbEIlsUUcAACYht?format=jpg&name=large)

[2] [https://www.wave3.com/2020/06/18/protesters-arrested-
followi...](https://www.wave3.com/2020/06/18/protesters-arrested-following-
altercation-with-driver-downtown-louisville/)

~~~
phs318u
You're extrapolating from the evidence of one event to all (or most) events.
What you're calling "journalistic malpractice" is possibly an editor with a
story in need of a picture (everything has to be visual to sell the story),
asking the photog pool for a suitable image. This happens all the time. Timing
matters though. In the instance you quote, if the original story was published
before the police charged the attackers, then the journalists made an honest
mistake. Otherwise we'd have to wait for the entire judicial process to reach
completion before making any comment. E.g. you seem to implying that because
they were charged by police, the attackers of the vehicle were in the wrong,
but that can't be known until a conviction is reached. The point, I'm making
is that journalism is an exercise in trying to parse and publish what is known
'at the time'.

I think your comment about mainstream media is mostly unfair, as the same
accusations can be made against most non-mainstream media. I'd also suggest
that NPR are one of the better mainstream media orgs, but that's just my
opinion. The parent poster made one case for why - they are willing to host
their own critics. Not too many news orgs are willing to do that.

~~~
monoideism
No, they had a narrative they wanted to push: "right-wing attackers victimize
noble protesters", and since there were only a few examples available, they
had to pull stories and footage from the many instances of when _protesters_
attacked vehicles.

I don't know you personally, but if you're like 99% of left-leaning urban
professionals, you're not aware of those instances, because you're only
exposed to a portion of what's happening. I'd suggest following a broad
spectrum of people on social media from the left, center, and right. You'll be
surprised what the mainstream left media leaves out.

Right-wing media does the same thing, by the way. You really have to watch
both to give anything resembling reality. It's a big problem, and it's getting
worse.

Even (decidedly left-wing) Brian Stelter featured this problem on this week's
Reliable Sources on CNN. For example, mainstream media is happy to cover what
they view as the malfeasance of the federal law enforcement officers in
Portland, but they fail to show the acts of the rioters that played a role in
their deployment (burning buildings, destruction of property, menacing cars,
etc). To be clear, I personally think their deployment was probably unwise,
and that politics played a large role. However, Portland's mayor has
consistently refused to crack down on whatever label you want to put on the
violent protesters wearing black. That adds significant complexity to the
situation.

NPR was the most neutral of any major news organization up until the past 2-3
years, when they've undergone major changes and now put out mostly
ideologically-driven pieces like other outlets on the left.

I do give credit to many local media outlets, who are often the only ones
asking the hard questions, like this local outlet in Portland:

[https://youtu.be/2yAzRnfzgwk?t=1218](https://youtu.be/2yAzRnfzgwk?t=1218)

[https://youtu.be/2yAzRnfzgwk?t=1022](https://youtu.be/2yAzRnfzgwk?t=1022)

~~~
clairity
> "NPR was the most neutral of any major news organization up until the past
> 2-3 years, when they've undergone major changes and now put out mostly
> ideologically-driven pieces like other outlets on the left."

it's been more like 5 years, at least since the snafu of the last presidential
election. but even as i criticize npr, i expect them to change for the better,
being "public" and certain shows/hosts providing valuable news without spin
(at least not much intolerable spin).

certain hosts/shows on the other hand are basically unlistenable, like michael
barbaro on nyt's the daily, with all of its melodramatic, self-righteous
cynicism designed for the superiority-complex set. it's disgusting pandering.

------
drevil-v2
The problem with this that there are actually massive cultural and ideological
changes been imposed on the western society at this time. We are being dragged
to the hard left across multiple institutions. Some of us might not want that

Ignore it and you will be the quintessential lobster slowly being boiled to
death.

~~~
maeln
Maybe I am confused and I didn't understand what you mean, but if you mean
"hard-left" in the political sense, I feel I have to disagree.

In a lot of western country, the "hard-right" has won: Trump in the US,
Johnson in the UK, Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil, ... And in some
other country they are maybe the strongest they ever been in recent memory
(France, Belgium, arguably even Germany). I cannot think of any "hard-left"
president/prime-minister that has won in any country recently. Moderate left
maybe, but no hard-left. So if anything, the institutions in power are
dragging us to the "hard-right", not really the opposite. Sure, some
institutions have always been a left stronghold, but until now, it doesn't
seem that they had really any impact in shifting the power balance ...

~~~
gadders
The OP said "cultural and ideological", not political.

~~~
maeln
Culture and ideologies are very much political.

~~~
yungmodulus
I think OP is going to meet resistance against the claim if people assume
(maybe incorrectly) that they’re talking about the United States. I can’t
speak to other places

