I am convinced that reading the news is worse than not reading anything at all. There is no proof that it makes us wiser, better decision makers, better informed, better citizens; nothing — if anything, entirely the opposite.
If you are anything like me, you’ve already stopped consuming news without even making a conscious decision about it. Maybe you felt the optimism being sucked out of you with every news bit and just stayed away or maybe without even noticing it, you found something better to do with your time and started replacing it. Or maybe you’ve never been a news person.
Whatever the reason — I bet you don’t miss it at all and you’ve probably realised you don’t really need it.
“The fortunate among us have recognized the hazards of living with an overabundance of food and have started to shift our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body.” -Rolf Dobelli
I wanted to write about this topic for some time now. Largely, because I got frustrated with that guy who thinks he is very cultured just because he reads the newspaper and knows what is going on in the world. And with that girl who knows everything about every celebrity and is very surprised to hear I don’t know about the leaked photos of Jenniffer Lawrence. But mostly, because I’ve benefited from it.
Since I unplugged from the news I feel more in control of my attention (I decide what thoughts I want wandering in my head), I have better reading habits (I seek and enjoy long, slow, thought-provoking reads), I have more time to gain meaningful insights elsewhere, and I’m definitely more optimistic.
So I decided to do some research about it and was blown away to find more than enough reasons to back up my gut instinct. I expected to find arguments on it being irrelevant, misleading, manipulative and time-costly — but toxic for our body? alters our brain structure? creativity killer? increases cognitive errors and inhibits thinking? Now those are significant statements.
And it’s not only the news media, these attention-grabbing techniques are almost everywhere, from government propaganda to corporate marketing. We see it all the time on facebook and twitter, each post screaming to get our attention, not so much asking but really tempting us for a click.
“Information is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. Why give it away so easily?” - Rolf Dobelli
In an era of paid-by-the-piece articles, of revenue-generating clicks, where luring headlines are more important than the actual content and where everybody can be a “journalist”, we should be careful about what we consume and we should specially be aware of the negative effects it has on ourselves and our society.
Today we know that the adult brain remains neuroplastic, this means it has the amazing ability to adapt and quite literally change its structure and functions as a result of experiences, environments and behaviours. So it is concerning that we are spending so much time on a daily basis, skimming through pictures, videos, headlines and text for relevant keywords; scrolling, clicking, linking. With so much information, our brain has to form shortcuts to deal with the overload and the distractions, because on top of that, we consume news while multitasking. We read the newspaper while having breakfast, we listen to the news while driving and thinking about our day ahead, we watch news bits on tv while scanning through the channels, we scroll through our twitter timeline during work.
We are quite......
Will come back soon!
我认为读新闻比不读任何东西更糟。没有任何证据表明它使我们变得更聪明、成为更好的决策者、更好地了解问题、变成更好的公民，一样也没有 ---
如果有的话，那完全就是相反的。
如果你与我有些相似，在没有有意做任何决定就已经停止“消费”新闻了。或许你已经感受到从新闻里脱离出来的好处、或者只是疏远、甚至不再有任何注意了，你将时间用到更好的事情上并且开始取代“新闻”了。又或者你根本就不是一个“新闻”人。
不管什么原因 --- 我敢打赌，你根本不喜欢它并且你可能意识到你并不是真的需要它。
“幸运的是我们已经意识到过多食物对生存的危害，并且开始调整饮食。但是大多数人并不明白：新闻是对于内心，而糖是对于身体。” --- 罗尔夫·多贝里（Rolf Dobelli）
我很久就想写这个话题了。很大程度是因为，有个家伙通过读报纸知道世界上正在发生什么，而自认为非常有文化，为此我感到很沮丧。并且还有这样的女孩子，她们知道所有名人的一切事情，然而对我不知道詹妮弗·劳伦斯（Jenniffer Lawrence）照片泄密的事情感到非常地惊讶。但总的来说，我从中受益了。
自从不再关注新闻，我感觉更能控制我的注意力（自己决定脑中所想），并且拥有更好的读书习惯（我寻求和享受长期的、缓慢的、发人深省的阅读）。我有更多的时间从其他地方发现有意义的见解。我肯定更乐观了。
所以我决定对此做一些研究，找到足够多的理由来验证我的直觉。我期望找到与新闻不相关、误导性、操控性和浪费时间等因素来证明 --- 对身体的危害？会改变我们大脑的结构？创意杀手？增加了认知误区或者抵制思维？现在这些都是很明显的了。
Rolf Dobelli像这样描述，与不得不将有限的注意力用到长久的、深入的、理智的、缓慢的以及平静的内容不同（这些相当重要，并且需要思考），大脑结构更偏向于注意浮华的、可见的、重大的、不光彩的、激烈的、图形化的、戏剧性的、以及故事性的东西。
不只是新闻媒体，这些引人注目的新技术几乎无处不再，从政府的宣传到企业的营销。我们任何时候都可以在facebook和twitter上看到，每个都在吸引我们的注意，只为引诱我们去点击。
“信息不再是什么稀缺的商品。而注意力是稀缺的。为什么就如此轻易地送人了呢？” - Rolf Dobelli
在这个人人都可以当“记者”，文章按件支付、通过点击创建收益的时代，吸引人的新闻标题比实际的新闻内容更重要。所以我们应该关心所消费的对象，特别是它对我们自身以及社会的负面影响。
现在，我们知道成人的大脑仍然具有可塑性的，这意味着它具有惊人的适应能力，并且随着经验、环境和行为缓慢地改变其结构以及功能。它关系到我们长时间的日常基准，通过图片、视频、标题和文字相关的关键字：滚动、点击、链接。有了如此多信息，我们的大脑就会养成粗略地处理这些过量的、杂乱的信息。最重要的是，我们在消费新闻的同时处理着许多其他事情。当吃早餐时看报纸、开车时听新闻同时还要提前思考当天的事情、频繁切换电视频道来获取新闻、工作同时还关注着twitter的新闻滚动。
未完待续......