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!
看新闻还不如从无阅读，这样的观念在我的脑海中根深蒂固。目前为止我们无法证明看新闻可以发展智力，提供更明智的决策，将我们塑造为博学多识的文明人。若谈能证明什么的话，结论截然相反。
但凡你或多或少能同意我的看法，无需深思熟虑早已不再看新闻了。随着一条条新闻走入你的视野，曾经积极乐观的情绪也在不断消散。你更愿意做一个旁观者，让它匆匆离去。这样就可以不再看新闻，去做一些更有意义的事情。而或你从来没对新闻动过心。
不论如何解释，我笃信从今以后你不会再沉湎于新闻，因为潜意识在提醒你：不需要它。
Rolf Dobeli曾经说过由于人类中的幸运儿已经认识到过营养化饮食会侵蚀健康，促使我们开始调整饮食结构。可是大多数人还是不能认清新闻的本质，新闻之于思维，好比糖类之于机体。
直到现在为止，我确实花了些时日，筹划着就该话题写一篇文章。很大程度上是因为我觉得一些人的想法很荒诞。有个男人曾经向我炫耀他读了很多报纸认识了这个世界，由此获得颇高的修养。还有个女孩自诩她了解所有的名人，在听说我对于Jenniffer Lawrence的照片丑闻事件毫无知晓后，她颇为惊讶。当然最重要的原因是，由此我受益匪浅。
自从我不再关注新闻以来，自制力愈来愈强（我可以控制自己的思维），养成了良好的阅读习惯，（我一直在寻觅并且享受着悠长，缓缓而又发人深省的阅读），这样我有更多时间去涉猎其他领域，获得真知。当然我也变得越来越乐观了。
由此我暗下决心就该话题展开一些研究，历尽艰辛找到足够的论据来证明我那似乎并非理性的知觉。我很希望能够找到一些论据，能够证明新闻报道确实无关紧要，存在误导性与强制性，并且很浪费时间－甚至会毒害我们的机体？改变大脑的组成？使创造力泯灭？误导认知，暂停思考？尔后是一些人们对新闻常有的认知。
它不仅是指新闻媒体，这些闹眼的伎俩从政府公告到企业营销，几乎无处不在。新闻报道在Facebook与Twitter上随处可见，每个帖子都在试图取信于我们，尽管并没有直接要求，却诱导我们去点击。
Rolf Dobelli说如今信息已经成为一种大众化的产品，而注意力却很稀有。我们没有理由轻易放弃。
在这个视文章为金钱，靠点击量获取受益的时代里，人们更关注的是诱人的头条而非实质内容。似乎每个人都可以成为新闻工作者。我们应当更加审慎的去选择阅读的材料，防止由此对自身及社会产生不良影响。
如今我们认识到成年以后人类大脑依旧潜藏着神经可塑性。基于经验认知，环境变化，行为反馈，人类完全可以对结构与功能进行调整，展现出惊人的适应生存能力。这就涉及到我们花太多时间致力于日常琐事，浏览图片，视频，新闻头条以及由关键词检索的文本；滚动鼠标，点击屏幕，跳转链接。大脑必定通过某种快捷的方式来抵抗负荷与干扰物。原因在于我们大脑执行多重任务时仍能了解新闻。早餐时间我们在看报纸，开车回想前天所作所为时又在听新闻广播，总揽电视频道时大量新闻不断涌来，工作的时候鼠标不时在推特的时间轴上滑动。