
Ask HN: Is it just me? why is “news” so addictive? - somishere
I&#x27;ve been offline since last Wednesday, driving and camping throughout northern outback australia (escaping the vid!). I have a second rate carrier and tonight I hear my phone ping for the first time since I left. I&#x27;ve had reception before, but usually only while driving, usually passing through a larger town. This time I&#x27;m sitting next to the fire, near a town called Nhulunbuy in East Arnhem, aboriginal land, one of the more remote regions on the planet. I&#x27;m on a small red cliff overlooking the ocean, I&#x27;ve spotted a largish croc on the sand below only an hour before, and I can see the entire milky way above me (it&#x27;s a new moon). As i&#x27;m writing this I just looked up and saw a satellite. The sky&#x27;s been pretty similar the last week, but still it&#x27;s spectacular. Anyway my phone pings and I pick it up and I end up reading the news and checking HN (for the first time in two weeks .. same old stories). What gives?
======
frereubu
Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by
Charles Simic in the NYRB.

"I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that
I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming
more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I
suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others
growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and
learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard
the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had
seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet. My late father, in the
final year of his life, claimed that he finally found that long-sought
serenity by no longer reading the papers and watching television. Even then,
and I was thirty years younger than he, I knew what he meant. What devotees of
sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the torments that
those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on their minds
almost every hour of the day."

[https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-
serenity/](https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/)

Edit: Charles Simic is a Serbian-American poet who lived through WWII and saw
some really grisly things, some described briefly in the article, hence "after
everything I had lived through and learned in my life..."

~~~
tossthere
I figured this out a few years ago and completely stopped all news
watching/reading entirely. I have nothing but positive things to say about
that decision, and surprisingly I seem to be better-informed and feel like I
have a worldview that more accurately reflects reality than most of the people
who follow news daily.

Daily news watchers now seem like such ineffective people to me, and I’m
reminded of the know-nothings from my teenage years rambling about conspiracy
theories. The entire time they’re talking about whatever is happening in the
news, I’m just thinking: “Who decided that this was important to you, and why
did you let them decide that?”

I have family members that can’t pay their rent on time or remember to feed
their kids breakfast, but they’ve got the geopolitical dynamics of the US and
Russia all figured out. They solved it.

Others talk endlessly about their opinions about all subjects deemed important
by the news. They speak with passion as if the opinions and convictions are
their own, yet every single stance they take conveniently mirrors whatever was
favored in whatever media they consumed.

None of them ever express an original thought. Every single one of them just
chooses a selection of things they heard and repeats it.

I’ve been doing this long enough that I think I can see how this is going to
turn out for me long-term. Name anything that happened 5 years ago. If it’s
significant, I remember it. If it isn’t, I never heard about it at all, and
nobody else remembers it either.

I’m by farrrrrrrr the happiest person I know, to the point that I literally
feel guilty about it sometimes. I just have so much time for my career that
I’ve zipped past everybody, so much time for family.

It might be the single best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’m really
thankful that I figured it out this young.

~~~
dencodev
Does being on HN not count? Feel like I see lots of news on HN. It's in the
name after all.

~~~
pb7
Definitely cheating and I’m not the GP, but I would argue HN is curated enough
to filter out most guilty pleasure outrage news cycles. Still in the same
realm though.

For example, the Twitter hack has made its rounds here but, say, Kanye having
a political meltdown hasn’t necessarily (or at least I haven’t seen it)
despite it being a prominent trend on Twitter.

~~~
drenvuk
I'm going to be blunt here and say that you're wrong. There is no difference.
The news may be curated and may be for a specific audience but the odds that
it's just as useless to you as mainstream news is still very high. I don't say
this to criticize, mind you. I'm here as well.

~~~
sjg007
HN provides the same dopamine surge.

~~~
chrisrickard
I have read HN every morning for the last ten years, and I think for the first
5 years of my HN life I felt a huge rush when _something_ new came out. That
could be a new "groundbreaking" app, JS library, Mac distro etc.

About 5 years ago it just started to fade.. probably as I started to click
less on the new JS libraries etc, and more on the obscure interesting
learnings (but also could be due to the content that makes the front page.

Every once and a while I jump on, look at a few links, read a few articles,
and feel a bit disappointed that I don't have my rush anymore... I think its
healthier, less addictive, but what happened to my good ol' junkie-hit days?
:)

~~~
sjg007
I started with slashdot, it was ok until I realized I couldn’t comment and
have anyone reply. I went to Reddit when it started but I never found a
community. Maybe b/c HN became that community.. kind of. I actually have an
earlier account I abandoned because I had been so addicted. But HN has similar
slashdot issues and other issues too. I never took to digg.. did anyone?
Twitter for me is a new thing but it has similar issues... no engagement. And
anywhere I am expert or have a contribution I get downvoted. That’s weird.
Kinda like how people feel if they’ve been profiled in the newspaper. Some of
it is right but specific details and nuance are wrong. I can see why people
feel it’s fake news in some sense. But that’s the nature of the fame.

I’m actually glad the engagement is minimal. It helps me disengage. It feels
like a FPS game against all the youngsters.

The moral of the story is to never read the comments. So what does that really
mean? It means, be the article, not a comment.

We are just grist in the wind.

------
0dana
My understanding is it’s the little thrill your brain gets from the
possibility of finding something super interesting. That’s the addicting
piece. The gambling piece of it.

I read (or more likely heard on a podcast) about an experiment with mice and a
food dispensing button. In one case, the button reliably dispensed food every
time it was pressed. In the other case, sometimes the button wouldn’t work.
The mice with the reliable button didn’t do anything odd. Whenever they were
hungry, they would hit the button for some food. The mice with the unreliable
button however would repeatedly hit the button, and they ended up being
overweight.

My feeling is that if EVERYTHING on something like HN was super interesting,
we’d only be here when we were up for some interesting reads. But the fact is,
not everything is. But the possibility that something EXTRA interesting might
pop up keeps us coming back in an addictive type of way.

~~~
somishere
Yes. I like this. Now, how to resolve it?

~~~
chvid
In the words of Morrissey: Stop reading the news.

~~~
mouzogu
Why would you quote him of all people. The guy is a racist at worst and a
bigot at best.

~~~
chvid
I am just one of those people who can listen to Wagner without invading Poland
...

~~~
lkvoid
That's a straw man statement. Listening to something is not the same as
sharing a quote from a horrible person.

~~~
chvid
The full quote is as follows:

    
    
      Stop watching the news
      Because the news contrives to frighten you
      To make you feel small and alone
      To make you feel that your mind isn't your own
    

And is from the song "Spent the Day in Bed".

It is relevant here as the mice in the experiment loose control over their
"mind" and start behaving in a self defeating manner.

------
coffeefirst
The premise is wrong. It’s less about news than your phone.

Before, news was timeboxed. You might have a daily paper habit, or listened to
the radio in the car on a commute, or a nightly broadcast, and a handful of
longer term magazines, but that was it. It may capture your attention for a
bit but there wasn’t any more of it to obsess compulsively.

24/7 cable broke this contract, but let’s be honest, that’s really not
something normal people stare at all day.

What’s really new is the constantly updating infinite feed, be it HN or
Facebook. (Refreshing the front page of NYT or the BBC doesn’t have enough
churn to creative this effect.) Oh, and we took that and we put it in your
pocket.

So that’s not great, and it definitely doesn’t need to be in your pocket.

I’m still experimenting with this, but the best change has been to unfollow
every news site on social media (the algorithm is a terrible editor) and sign
up for a few email newsletters instead. They’re finite, and the good ones are
curated by real people.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
What newsletters do you get? I'm definitely interested in this.

~~~
leonroy
not the OP, but I find _BIG by Matt Stoller_ and _Notes on the Crises_ by
Nathan Tankus a nice break from the mainstream press.

Insightful, well considered and non-dramatized writing on important subjects:
[https://nathantankus.substack.com/](https://nathantankus.substack.com/)
[https://mattstoller.substack.com/](https://mattstoller.substack.com/)

------
gavinray
It's a pure dice-rolling addiction.

Let me share a personal story:

For the last 3.5 years, every night before bed, I would browse
[https://www.gitlogs.com](https://www.gitlogs.com), a site that had it's own
algorithm for ranking top-trending Github repos for the day (it is much better
than Github Trends, don't ask how).

It was my nightly ritual, and my favorite part of the day. Sometimes I would
find 3-5 REALLY fucking awesome projects, or one that was so useful it changed
my life as a developer, in one night.

I never missed a night.

For the last month or two it's been flaky (the API has been hosted as a free
Glitch project this whole time LOL) and finally, the backend died. So it's
gone forever. RIP friend, I have a void in my soul now.

But while it was alive, it was a daily dice roll that was incredibly
exhilarating. And that's the addiction, and why I sink so much time into HN
too.

~~~
travmatt
Off-topic, but I wish GitHub had more functionality with starring repos. That
and search seem such neglected parts of their platform.

~~~
rom16384
I often use [http://www.yasiv.com/github/](http://www.yasiv.com/github/) a
tool to find related repos using information about shared number of stars to
calculate similarity index between two projects.

Github: [https://github.com/anvaka/gazer](https://github.com/anvaka/gazer)

------
omarhaneef
It may be the case that we just crave variety.

If I am scrolling hacker news, and someone opened a portal to the Australian
outback, I’d probably put down HN (sorry, folks) and crawl through the portal
to hang out for a bit.

I lived on a beach for years and in a big city for several, and in each place
I craved the other.

~~~
germinalphrase
> If I am scrolling hacker news, and someone opened a portal to the Australian
> outback, I’d probably put down HN (sorry, folks) and crawl through the
> portal to hang out for a bit.

Which will, of course, be a fun VR diversion when the fully immersive video
capture is accessible enough.

------
mhandley
Part of it is surely fear of missing out, in this case fear that everyone else
will know something you don't. Exactly what we fear of missing out on probably
varies a lot from person to person. I don't care all all about the football
results, but many people do, as it's a staple of their conversation in their
social sphere.

For the HN crowd, we survive and thrive on what we know. We're in an industry
that moves rapidly, and we perceive that successful people thrive on knowing
more, or knowing first. Of course that's only partly true. Successful people
know just enough, and then actually get the job done. Knowing where to draw
the line between reading about what others have done and doing stuff ourselves
is really hard. It's always easier to read about what others have done, and it
feels productive, but past a certain point it really isn't.

------
ksec
I remember many years ago I read an article on studies about addiction, and
turns out Pornography and Drugs totally lost out to News, being the number one
worldwide addiction without being widely known.

Unfortunately my Google Fu hasn't turn up anything. I will Edit the post if I
find the link.

My personal opinion is that

1\. All Human has an urge to want to know more, Curiosity. It doesn't
necessarily means knowledge, as information without "thinking" is pretty much
meaningless. One reason why the world we are in right now are a complete mess,
because thanks to the Internet we all thought we "know".

2\. All Human has an urge to want something better, Innovation. Why hasn't
something been done? Why hasn't this problem be solved? Is this not a problem
for enough people to recognise changes? Has Science improved? Medical
improved? Technology Improved? Food Safety or Nutrition Improved? etc.

------
airkumar
Seems like a good time to revisit this blog post by the late-Aaron Schwartz
about removing news from your information diet:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)

~~~
TameAntelope
Removing news is a solution that screams privilege though, isn't it?

If I'm a DREAMer, or a woman who works for a private company, or a person
recently laid off due to COVID, I kind of need to follow along to help me
understand how I'm going to make it the next 30 days.

~~~
airkumar
Yeah I've definitely thought about this and share the concern. I think there
is a distinction between news that addresses immediate issues, like the ones
you mentioned, vs unfocused news consumption, which amounts to a distracting
form of entertainment that masquerades as productivity or civic
responsibility.

The former is largely necessary, but probably far less frequent than we think
on average. The latter is what we ought to reconsider; it's the addictive
version of news that we should probably swap for slower/deeper versions of
information.

I know Schwartz argues for a hardline "no news" position. I think that any
amount of reflection and discipline to minimize mindless news consumption
under the guise of "staying informed" and replacing that with deeper thought
is a net benefit, and one that people from any walk of life are capable of.

I guess the question of how to filter out the noise and only pay attention to
salient issues is the real challenge. When I've experimented with this, I've
often still heard about issues important to my various identity/interest
groups through group chats with friends, in-person conversations, even just
passing by newstands and seeing headlines. This doesn't seem like a
satisfyingly reliable solution, but like Schwartz mentions, it's kinda
surprising how much current info we absorb even when not explicitly reading
the news.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Perhaps we need to view 'news' through the lens of 'is this information'
before reading and therefore allowing it to impact how we feel about our
lives. News being an event that may or may not impact your life, vs.
information that can be assimilated to improve your life. Or perhaps, did you
seek out the information because you need to learn something, or, are you
reading what is being presented to you unprompted by a service that profits
from you viewing it?

There is some news that matters, in terms of how you or those that matter to
you can be impacted. For example, the state of the economy as pertains to your
employment can help you forecast interruptions in work. Or in other economic
cases, enable you to forecast where good investments will be. Or someone you
admire passing away.

In political terms, changes in direction of leadership can forecast changes in
lifestyle. Many nations could be given as an example, Iran, Syria, Turkey.

What does not matter, ever, as far as I can tell, is the type of 'rare
incident' such as a shark attack killing a surfer, or a wildfire in another
country that killed some unfortunate people, or locust swarms in Asia when
you've never left South America. It matters to people directly affected, of
course, but if you're half a world away, every day some bad event is going to
transpire somewhere that could literally never affect your life. Does it
benefit you to be aware of this?

~~~
koheripbal
I think an important point is that news outlets have learned how to sell news
as tabloid entertainment. ...and when you engineer the narrative into a story
that people find compelling, then if become emotionally addictive.

...and entirely destructive to political discourse.

------
somishere
So thank you for your many thoughtful responses to the post. My battery is
about to die which means I am over and out (until I drive somewhere tomorrow
and re-juice the phone). But to be honest, you've all done a pretty good job
of answering why HN sits high in the list of nervous tics. I genuinely look
forward to returning to read everything posted in the interim. In the meantime
here's a picture of the sky from where I'm sat ~
[https://ibb.co/cwDD7GG](https://ibb.co/cwDD7GG)

------
justaguyhere
How does one decide what information to consume? If I shun news altogether,
then how will I come to know of some events that might have a direct effect on
my life?

Even with what we consider _useful_ knowledge, how much of it is really
useful? Yes, it is fun learning new stuff, making connections between
seemingly disjointed topics etc, but how much of it has direct influence on
our daily lives? I've learned a lot from HN, but I often wonder if I should
have spent all that time elsewhere, carefully picking up only those knowledge
and skills that benefit me in my life and that I can use to help others.

This isn't an answer to your question, because I don't know the answer. I've
the same question as you. My one guess is that everything that is made today
is made with the explicit intention of getting users hooked - from fast food
to social media, including news.

------
throwaway_USD
Coincidentally neuroscientist Andrew D. Huberman was on the JRE podcast
yesterday and among the many topics/studies he discussed was one where
electrodes were hooked up to brains and the subjects were given complete
control over the areas they stimulated.

Contrary to what one might think (or at least the scientists) that the
subjects would stimulate areas of sexual response or pleasure, it turns out
they elected to stimulate areas of anger and frustration.

Without knowing exactly what "news" you found yourself reading, I think its a
fair guess the majority of news now-a-days (or maybe always) triggers this
area of the brain and so you are probably just elected to trigger anger and
frustration over stimulating your brain with the natural beauty of the world
around you (so don't feel bad apparently this is the norm).

------
beefield
I recommend book "Stop reading the news" by Rolf Dobelli.

To put it short, daily news are bad for you. Especially and including your
understanding of the world. (Yes, I am still addicted, but trying to work
myself out.)

~~~
perch56
+1 for Rolf Dobelli’s book. Read it last year and while I can’t say it changed
my life, it definitely improved it.

------
ganafagol
As somebody who likes nature, please don't make fire on a cliff. It leads to
the rock cracking and degrading faster. The next one coming along wants to
enjoy the place as much as you do.

~~~
somishere
Thanks for the tip, honestly didn't know that. It's actually a sandstone
cliff, my fire is about 15m from the edge (nearer my tent than the drop) and
I'm using my own firepit. It's generally pretty hard to light fires (legally)
in this part of the world without some serious precautions!

------
smcg
I think news gives the illusion that you are doing something important when
you really aren't, and that has appeal.

Sometimes I feel like I am endlessly scrolling for a "solution" or bit of news
that I "like". Then I have to take a step back and do something else, because
nothing good really comes of that.

------
hoorayimhelping
A therapist or coach recommended this book called the Power of Habit.
[https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-
Business/dp/081...](https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-
Business/dp/081298160X).

The central theme of that book is that people attribute dumb behaviors to
things like chemical dependence, when in fact it's a behavioral habit. The
classic example from the book is people trying to quit smoking. You kick the
physical dependency in a few days - the headaches and irritability go away,
but smokers still relapse months or years afterwards. Why? It's because the
smoking formed a habit to their brain, and their brain associated good
feelings with smoking.

Read the book. But if you don't: Your brain has trained you to feel good when
you read the news. You break this habit by replacing the good feeling of
reading the news with a good feeling from some other, positive, healthy
activity. Example: every time you get a desire to pull out your phone, do 10
pushups instead. You get a little physical exercise, and your brain starts
associating positive feelings with positive activities.

Also, why the hell do you have notifications turned on if you're worried about
the phone or the news being addictive? It's like asking to have cravings
amplified. Turn off badges, notifications, etc. Check it on your own time and
terms.

------
cambaceres
This article enabled me to see and take care of my news addiction:

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-
ro...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli)

------
phoe-krk
They're designed to be. The more emotional outrage they provoke in you, the
more you spend engaging with them by reading more news, writing online
comments, or even if the outrage happens once you've already closed the given
webpage, giving you a need to read even more of them.

That's how they get views, ad revenue, and user-generated comments - out of an
army of addicted people.

------
jwally
Matt Taibbi has a pretty good take on it I think.
([https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Inc-Todays-Despise-
Another/dp/19...](https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Inc-Todays-Despise-
Another/dp/1949017257))

I just built an app to control my own addiction (addictionlocker.com) and have
thought a lot about this recently.

My two cents: the media has gotten good at giving us what we want, and what we
want is conflict. If bad news and fighting weren't what we wanted they
wouldn't publish it. By engaging with it, we tell it what we want, and they
just deliver more of it. Extrapolated ad absurdum; YouTube and Facebook's
algorithms serve you what you're interested in, otherwise you'd get bored and
go somewhere else. The rest of the media just got good at doing this too...

------
Dumblydorr
Your brain gives you dopamine reward hits when you find a new article or
topic, then you form a habit of looking for those dopamine hits. This habit is
physically manifest in neural circuitry which your brain uses like a function
to simplify its decision making, it uses that process to fill time and release
dopamine.

So, you have to retrain your brain not to even start the process, you must be
mindful and interrupt the process as it starts. Also, make the barrier to
entry into the process very high, make it annoying and inconvenient to do the
bad habit.

------
silicon2401
One of the best things I've done in my life is to start actively avoiding
news. That doesn't mean I try to stay ignorant of what happens outside my
home's walls. News is not information. Information you can find on your own,
news is somebody deciding for you what you should know and how you should feel
about it.

I've had nothing but an improvement in quality of life since starting this,
and think people should try it at least once in their life, just to see how
unhealthy news can be

------
johnvega
Attention hijacking, turns into subtle micro-habits, then turns into routines,
backed by the most powerful computers in the world and most likely AI.

Internet + Smartphones + Apps

------
webscout
Mentioned this a while ago but I try to skip all the CNNs and just subscribe
to a couple of newsletters for Zeitgeistish stuff. the hustle,
briefingday.com, etc.

------
AdrianB1
It may be a feedback loop that makes people read news.

When I was a kid or teenager I used to live in some mountains where even
newspapers were rare. Being disconnected for months or years had no negative
impact. Working in IT, being disconnected for a couple of years can
catastrophic for you because changes are often, not of substance but there are
legion of minor things that add up and catching up is possible, but difficult.
Therefore I read IT news to keep up and ignore regular news, I don't watch TV
and just read the titles of online news for something that I really need to
know (like a virus lockdown in my city or country).

In a way I am concerned about the many "show HN: I did <some minor or
irrelevant stuff> that I am proud of <and it's so similar with another billion
existing solutions for the same problem>"; it gives the impression important
things happen, when they don't. This feeds the loop to continue reading for
some stuff for the fear of missing something important or useful.

------
eljefe900
It has always been. That’s why it’s called “News” not “Olds”. Getting access
to the most up to date information about the world has always been compelling.
Whether it’s where the best hunting or foraging grounds were, who is in a
relationship to who, or which person/people are attacking our tribe. It’s all
the same now.

Aggregators like people who are gossips, newspapers and now social media are
all attention based. Even the structure of writing of news stories to give you
the main story in the headline, then start with the conclusion and fill in the
details has been making this type of information bite sized from the dawn of
time.

And now of course our “news” is global, often the stories about people are not
people actually in our lives (Royals? Celebrities, who cares?), and politics
have cranked us vs them to 11. No wonder it’s addictive.

Add in complicated feelings that we want to avoid (how bout that pandemic?)
and looking at new information also serves as a distraction from the things we
can or cannot change in our lives.

Be well weary news consumer. Get off your phone and enjoy nature.

~~~
somishere
A distraction for sure. Luckily my battery is on 4% so I'll be forced off very
soon.

------
lukehack
Almost all news and social media site structure is derived from research using
the Skinner box[1, scroll down to A Man, a Plan, and a Rat in a Box].
Researching operant conditioning, they found that introducing randomness to
some sort of dopamine release would cause habitual behavior of the action that
caused dopamine release. This reaction to novelty was then successfully
transferred to humans. This is most obvious on Reddit IMO, with "gems"
interspersed between vapid, uninteresting posts.

I'm actually making an alternative to Facebook that shows posts
chronologically in the feed instead of using machine learning algorithms to
make them addictive. I also plan to not include a share button on posts. I
think these two changes would make it far less addictive and better for users.

[1] [https://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/conditioned-
social-m...](https://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/conditioned-social-media-
engagement-breaking-users-out-of-the-infinite-scroll/)

------
MattyRad
It's difficult that in this covid pandemic you'll come off as esoteric or
uninformed because you don't stay immediately up to date with the hyperbolized
and polarizing news.

For example, just tonight, I wasn't sure exactly the status of bars: whether
they are _allowed_ to be open (legally), which ones might _choose_ to be open
(socially), which ones have _favorable_ conditions (physically; outdoor
seating, mask regulation, that sort of thing). When I asked my friends about
the general status, they were somewhat incredulous.

Regardless, I had a nice time socializing, until my girlfriend and I went back
to the car, and she immediately started a very uncomfortable diatribe on which
of our friends she suspected were Republican based on innocuous comments of
recent events.

I guess my point is that even if you try to abstain from the toxicity of
current events and of the news, your friends and families can drag you back
down, and I don't know how to improve the situation.

------
chansiky
I'm in the same boat. News is addicting. I've done a lot to rid myself of
various addictions but news has been the last and hardest one to crack. It
seems like it would be beneficial to know what's going on, and sometimes it
is. Socially you look like a weirdo if you don't know the latest scare.

But that's not why I check it. I am addicted, and people a hundred years back
recognized this as well.

Why I don't spend the time reading Tolstoy or Neitzsche or something more
substantial I don't know. What I do know is that I burn more time than is
healthy consuming it and it doesn't give back nearly as much as I give in. I
have no suggestions, but maybe this will be what I try to expunge for the rest
of this quarantine phase. I think at the end of it, the only thing in control
of any addiction is one's self, site blockers and timers help, but what I
really need are bulletproof arguments against consuming it, and from there I
believe the motivation will follow.

------
lmuench
> Study finds information acquisition shares the same dopamine producing
> reward system pathway as food, financial rewards and drugs.

[https://neurosciencenews.com/information-addiction-
brain-142...](https://neurosciencenews.com/information-addiction-brain-14274/)

------
nayuki
Raptitude has a good article about why you should read less news:
[https://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice-
whe...](https://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice-when-you-
quit-the-news/)

------
lnanek2
Reading news is procrastination. It's easier to rationalize than other forms,
however. Not as obviously useless as watching TV. It's addictive because you
don't have to go do work or something novel, but don't feel like you are
wasting time.

------
deephdave
[https://readup.com/comments/the-guardian/-news-is-bad-for-
yo...](https://readup.com/comments/the-guardian/-news-is-bad-for-you--and-
giving-up-reading-it-will-make-you-happier-)

------
Waterluvian
A lot of things going on. My amateur take on _just one_ of the factors is that
we are evolutionarily inclined to be aware of events, especially negative
events.

Bad news is so addictive because knowing about the bad things in our tribe’s
region helps us survive.

------
david927
I was a huge news junkie in college. And at one point, I don't know where
maybe at a doctor's office, I saw the cover of Newsweek magazine with a
shocking statement of impending doom. I grabbed it and read the article and
was worried. Then I saw the cover date was about a year old.

That moment was hugely influential to me. I still follow the news but at an
arm's length. I learned that in news, as in everything, there are a few
overarching stories and a lot of minutiae. A little signal, lots of noise. The
signal takes a long time to build, it's not daily news. But when it comes, all
the daily news changes to reflect it.

------
cblconfederate
Novelty is rewarding in itself, all kinds of novelty (Why did you ride out to
the outback? because you wanted novelty of visual and other sensory stimulus
as well as novelty in perception of place). Same way why simply driving
somewhere new is rewarding. "News" is constant information novelty , it's not
like the "olds". Rewarding things have the potential to be addictive. If they
are easily obtainable they tend to become so.

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24911320/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24911320/)

------
iamcurious
You reminded me of this quote “Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced
to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and
sins of five billion strangers.” -- Stranger in Strange Land.

------
jkingsbery
That sounds awesome!

If you're going to spend time on the Internet, you could make it a better
place by telling us more about what sounds like an awesome trip so we have
something to read that's not the stupid news.

~~~
somishere
When I have the time!

------
cainxinth
I think it’s related to a human bias towards novel stimuli. Evolutionarily,
it’s unsafe to disregard new and unfamiliar signals. That sound could be
nothing, or it could be predator outside the cave.

------
fsloth
I would guess it's the same mechanism as used in gambling , gaming and social
media to addict the user: variable reward.

For some reason if you are given a reward with unpredictable interval in some
specific context, this will create a dopamin kick in your brain.

So I would say you are not addicted to the _news_ as such, you are addicted to
the dopamine kick that picking up an occasional interesting news-article from
the endless queue creates.

Slot machines, games with surprise reward loot-boxes, doom-scrolling social
media - they all utilize this simple neurological hack.

------
chinathrow
I am in the same boat, floating the same ocean full of news.

New stuff, head lines, news flashes, breaking news, current events,
notifications etc. all trigger some dopamine release and make me feel
satisfied.

------
Funes-
The media tries to induce fear and rage so they get the maximum number of
eyeballs to see their ads. Couple that with high access to information and low
transformative power on the part of the individual and you're set: almost
everyone seems to be expecting some kind of "happening" to turn the tide
towards their own ideology, since they cannot participate themselves. The
media abides, but only gives them some breadcrumbs here and there to keep them
glued to the screens.

------
m3kw9
One of the reason is because we like “new” things. Human tend to be attracted
towards new vs old. I notice myself often less wanting to click on a news in
HN that is not new.

------
BurningFrog
News is mostly gossip. It tells you about unusual and sensational things. Not
about how to understand the world.

To understand the world, spend that daily time reading books instead.

------
twosdai
I've gone so far as to forceably reduce the temptation of other websites by
reducing my feed to a static set of links which is updated once a day.

Live website: www.danielwasserlaufquicklinks.com

github if you want to manage your own:
[https://github.com/twosdai/contentGrabber](https://github.com/twosdai/contentGrabber)

I don't come to hackernews that often so just open an issue on git if you have
a question.

------
PaulHoule
It is designed to be. If it wasn't addictive they'd change it to make it so.
Otherwise you'd be thinking about the other 10^12 things in the world.

------
gremlinsinc
If you're on the autism spectrum.. your brain is hardwired to be 'obsessed' w/
certain topics it seems (just learning I'm on spectrum at 40).

you hate to talk, but get you going on a subject you read about yesterday and
nobody can shut you up...

For those of us lower on the spectrum we're not super focused on one area but
multiples, for me that's tech/programming/politics/science and lately viruses
for obvious reasons.

------
Asuchug4
You ask that on site that is as minimalistic as possible and still has buildin
'noprocrast' option. Clearly people can't stop checking the news.

------
mouzogu
I think it might be the "new" in "news". I think our brain has an impulsivity
towards novelty.

Perhaps it's hitting the reward centers of our brain that is designed to
validate productive behaviour. Although as we know there's a fine line when it
comes to consumption of so-called news as to wheter it is actually productive.

I guess like any addictive "substance" it can be difficult to regulate and
control.

------
paul7986
Personally I've tuned out all news minus local news. All other is
sensationalized garbage filled with fueling hate (stereotypes), outrage, and
fear.

------
shlant
not sure if this resonates with anyone else, but from my own experience
(especially back when I had really bad anxiety) I think a major draw of news
is the perceived feeling of safety from being "in the know". I believed that
the more I knew about what was going on in the world, the safer I would be
without necessarily taking action based on the information. I think it was as
if not reading the news was like being in a dark room where my mind was free
to conjure up a multitude of awful things/situation lurking in the dark, but
by reading what was gong on and grounding those fears in something "real", it
gave me the sense that the world was not so scary or I could at least better
react/protect myself by "knowing"/"illuminating" the darkness.

Of course all this mostly just fed into my fears and just exacerbated my
anxiety-induced hyper vigilance and paranoia, but I really think that there
was a part of me that saw benefit in being aware of the state of the world
through news (both mainstream and alternative).

------
thisistheend123
I think the whole package has been made in a such a way that it's addictive ..
It's just another product being sold in the market ..

------
stakkur
News is stimulus. All you're describing is a habit you've formed, and a
stimulus you respond to.

When we're 'addicted' to anything, it's just us abusing our individual coping
mechanisms.

The answer, like in all other aspects of life, is to take steps to form the
habits you want, and steps to discard the habits you don't want.

------
jackcosgrove
I am an online media junkie but recently I've found so much of the news
boring. Not because of what's going on, but because how it is reported is all
the same. Hyperbole, listicles (never more than 10 items), predictions about
the future that are simply opinions, etc.

Maybe there is hope that too much news just exhausts everyone.

------
narrator
I stopped reading news for a while as an experiment. It made me start to dwell
on my personal life. Money issues, my love life, loneliness, my future in
general, etc. This can either be a happy thing or not. I imagine the more
bleak one's personal life is, the more we are drawn to news.

------
barbs
From a fellow Aussie: I'm in Melbourne atm in the midst of the latest C19
outbreak and I wish I was there

~~~
somishere
Sorry to hear! Hard to enjoy a Melbourne winter without the culture (and a
pandemic). Tho not sure how much you'd be able to relax up here ... Have been
getting some major earbashings about Victorians on the lam.

------
otr
I think when it comes to news it just ends up being another skinner box for
me. Reload the page/pull the lever whatever you want to call it. You almost
always will find another story that's interesting. But, almost always it will
just be another fluff-filled piece about some topic.

------
cJ0th
While reading the news you do not have to deal with yourself. Quite a relieve
for most people I reckon.

On top of that, bad "news" sources are designed in such a way that you do get
addicted (e.g. endless scrolling, getting notifications on new article while
still reading one, clickbait and so on).

------
gukov
Here's one theory:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYiif7znZw&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYiif7znZw&feature=youtu.be&t=720)
(Scott Adams @ Commonwealth Club of California).

------
vz8
My solution whenever focusing on goals / deadlines: edit hosts file (as
root/admin, when necessary)

127.0.0.1 reddit.com www.reddit.com

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 twitter.com

127.0.0.1 other social / news domains...

The little bit of friction required to undo this is enough to remind me to get
back to being productive.

Also, Pomodoros for pacing.

------
oqtvs
One of the best things that I did for myself related to this addiction process
is to use android focus/well-being to limit my interaction with social
networks/news with a time budget. It allowed me to focus my efforts in doing
other things.

------
afarrell
1\. Because organizations which don't make their news rewarding to read will
not be able to make a profit.

2\. Because we humans evolved as storytelling creatures. We live and die by
our ability to maintain a connection to our kinship group by telling stories.

------
originalvichy
I think it is an easy, highly rewarding version of learning. Learning new
things from a physics book and a news paper is probably not that enormously
different on a chemical level.

News papers give you dozens of new things to learn every time you refresh the
page.

------
crispyporkbites
Our species has survived through millions of years of evolution by being
social, and depending on others for resources. It's baked into our DNA by now.
News is the ultimate form of social information, ergo, it's hard to resist.

~~~
somishere
Yeah the social thing is real. But the relentless need for currency? It feels
more like a disease than an evolution.

------
m463
This is just evolution in action. The quiet progressive evolution of A/B
testing culminating in our current symbiotic relationship between our dopamine
receptors and the news headline generators. :)

------
tsjq
Reminds me of this thread from last year.

"Information is like snacks, money, and drugs to the brain"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241456)

------
at_a_remove
The twenty-four hour news cycle has had time to refine itself to be addicting.
They must always produce _news_ to be on continually, and news that keeps eyes
on the screen, and therefore advertisers happy.

------
gdubs
Evolution. Information == survival. There’s a good scientific overview of how
our hunter-gatherer brains evolved to put a huge value on novel bits of
information in the book, “The Distracted Mind”.

------
paulcarroty
News is like heroin, also earns _billions_. Also addictive as porn, coffee,
cigarettes etc.

One of the easiest way to leave that way - force yourself to create something,
not consume everything.

------
longtom
It's all about gaining social status, about knowing more than that other bloke
and potentially gaining some economic advantage so as to attract an attractive
female etc.

------
exabrial
"News" is about manipulating your emotions to keep you watching, which sells
advertising revenue. As long as you are upset about something, the
profiteering ensures.

------
tomduncalf
Reposting a comment from another thread as it seems relevant, I was talking
about Twitter but the same applies to news sites I think...

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.

------
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
New. We are triggered by new information. Probably a really useful trait if
you wandering around a savanna. Bit of a burden now to be honest.

------
pvaldes
Saltwater crocodile: eating humans and their phones since prehistorical
times...

------
csdreamer7
My biggest issue with 'not reading the news/social media', as so many have
suggested, is that:

1) It feels irresponsible as a US Citizen. Especially with Trump as president.
The corruption committed by the FCC chairman alone, that he nominated, feels
like I should keep ahead of as a citizen. I got into politics after Microsoft
tried to lobby the California government to ban copyleft software licenses
like the GNU GPL.

2) There is good information valuable to me as a person or to my profession.
It is easy to ignore CNN-a lot of it is click bait. Phoronix and Slashdot is
another story. This post on 'Hacker News' is another good example. Yet it
triggers the same dopamine release that gambling does-a random chance of
getting something that may benefit you. But you are spending your time,
instead of money, and instead of getting a lot of money, you get information
you need to spend more time to act on in the future.

------
tapatio
I stopped reading Apple News and Google News. Life is much better now.

------
kalium-xyz
News is habit forming.

------
nodefourtytwo
I think it's because you like to learn new things.

~~~
somishere
I'd like to think it's as simple as that. And similarly to explain why I enjoy
a drink most evenings.

------
pknerd
I prefer _Not_ to follow COVID related news.

------
drewcoo
Marketing. And it's not just news or why fizzy water and clothing and
everything else that's sold to make you feel special. It's why we like pickup
trucks now. And why we think everyone should have a gun. And why drugs seem so
dangerous. And even why our notions of "left wing" in American seem awfully
far to the right if we step back out of our typical context. All the result of
marketing.

------
mam2
cause you are drawn away from the hard reality of yourr shity life

