Here and below is the translation by Danila Egorov of the article “Avoid News” by Rolf Dobelli. If you are proficient in English, you can stop reading here. Just move on to… link Текст для перевода: ..
This article is an antidote to the news. It’s long, so you might not be able to read it quickly. Due to the mass consumption of news, we have lost the ability to read more than four pages at a time. This article will show you how to break free from the trap called “news,” if you haven’t already gotten too stuck in it.
Table of Contents
News for the mind is like sugar for the body.
We are so well-informed, yet we know so little. Why? Because 200 years ago we invented a toxic form of knowledge—“news.” It’s time to uncover the harmful effects of news and take steps to protect ourselves from its dangers.
At our core, we are cave people in suits and dresses. Our brains are optimized for hunting and gathering, living in small groups of 25 to 100 people, and surviving in conditions of limited food and information. Today, our brains and bodies exist in a world for which they are completely unprepared. This leads to significant risks and dangerous behaviors.
In recent decades, the luckiest among us have recognized the dangers of living in a world of food abundance (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change their diets. However, most people don’t even realize that news for the brain is like sugar for our bodies. News is easy to consume. We are fed small bites of simple information that don’t relate to our lives and don’t require mental effort. As a result, we hardly ever feel satisfied. Unlike reading books and long articles that demand cognitive engagement, we can absorb an endless amount of flashy news. Just as bright as little candies for our brains.
Today, we have reached a point of information overload just as we reached a point of food overload 20 years ago. We are starting to understand that news can be toxic. And we are taking the first steps towards an information diet.
This is my attempt to clarify the dangers posed by the news and to recommend ways to combat these dangers. I have been living without news for a year now, so I can see and describe the results of this freedom: less distraction, more time, less stress, deeper thoughts, and more discoveries. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
Here are the reasons why you should consider giving up on the news.
Reason #1: The news systematically misleads us.
The news doesn’t provide any real understanding of the world. Our brains primarily focus on visual, large-scale, sensational, scandalous, and loud information presented in the form of stories. Due to its limitations, the brain doesn’t pay much attention to long, abstract, slow, and complex pieces of knowledge.
Bright stories are very useful for survival: “A man-eating tiger has appeared in the area!” This is valuable information. That’s why the brain has learned to pay special attention to it. The media exploit this cognitive bias as much as possible.
What do TV channels and newspapers do? They focus on striking visuals. The main thing is the image, even if it obscures more important but boring details. This is how they capture our attention; this is how the business model works. Our brains enjoy engaging stories; they are easy to digest.
Let’s consider an example: a car drives onto a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What will they talk about on television? The car. The driver. Where he was headed. What kind of person he was and how many children he had. But none of that really matters. What is important? The structural integrity of the bridge. A flaw in that specific bridge that could lead to the collapse of other bridges. That’s the lesson to take away from this. What difference does it make what kind of car it was? Any car could have brought down the bridge; it could have been strong winds or a stray dog. So why does television focus on the car? Because it’s a vivid and dramatic image, a personal story. Plus, such news is cheap to produce. Why look for bridge experts and analyze material resistance? It’s easier to interview the neighbor of the deceased and take a photo of the mangled car.
As a result of the efforts of the media, we have an entirely distorted map of risks in our minds:
- Terrorism is overestimated, while chronic stress is underestimated.
- The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers is overrated, while financial discipline is underrated.
- astronauts are overrated, nurses are underrated;
- Britney Spears is overrated, while the climate change report is underrated.
- Aviation disasters are overrated, while antibiotic resistance is underrated.
We are not rational enough to resist the pressure of modern media. And this is a very dangerous thing, as the risk assessment we get from the news is completely different from the actual risks we face.
Watching news about plane crashes will change your risk assessment, no matter how smart you are. If you think you can counteract this distortion through introspection, you’re mistaken. Even bankers and economists, who have real incentives to resist news-related fears, have found themselves powerless.
The only solution is to completely cut yourself off from consuming news.
Reason #2: The news isn’t important.
Over the past year, you have read about 10,000 news stories. Can you name at least one news item that helped you make a better decision regarding an important aspect of your life, your career, or your business? Could you have made that decision using information from other, non-news sources?
The point is that the news we are shown doesn’t really matter in terms of the forces that actually affect us. At best, the news is entertaining. But in any case, it’s useless.
Imagine, no matter how strange it may sound, that you found a useful piece of news. A piece of news that significantly changed your life. How much useless information do you have to sift through to get to that valuable nugget? We can’t determine the value of each piece of news in advance, so we end up consuming everything indiscriminately. Is it worth it? Probably not.
Several examples of news stories that impacted hundreds of thousands of people but went underappreciated.
In 1914, the news of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination was supposed to overshadow all other news in terms of significance. But it was just one of thousands of stories. Private Švejk and the ordinary reporter saw it as nothing more than yet another political assassination. Certainly not a turning point in human history.
The first internet browser appeared in 1995. This monumental step for humanity went largely unnoticed by the press.
People find it very difficult to determine what is truly important. It’s much easier to identify something new. We lack the faculties to perceive the importance of information. Importance is not determined naturally, unlike news. The struggle between what is important and what is new is a fundamental challenge of modern life.
News inundates us with perspectives that are irrelevant. Irrelevant means unimportant to us personally. What matters is for us to decide. We shouldn’t leave that to news channels. For news channels, the story that sells millions of copies is what counts. Darfur, Paris Hilton, a train crash in China, some ridiculous world record for eating 78 cheeseburgers in an hour. These deceptive tricks are at the very core of the media business. They are presented as important, but in reality, they are just news.
The media wants us to believe that staying updated with the news gives us some sort of competitive advantage over others. And many people buy into this idea. We get anxious when we’re cut off from the news stream. We fear missing out on something important. But in reality, consuming news is actually depriving ourselves of competitive advantages. The less news you consume, the more advantages you have over others.
Are you afraid of missing something important? From my experience, if something truly significant happens, you’ll hear about it even if you’re living in information isolation. Friends and colleagues will fill you in on everything, and they’ll do it more reliably than news channels. They’ll also add some meta-information as a bonus, since they know your priorities and you understand their mindset.
Conclusion: You will learn much more about important events and social changes by reading specialized journals, good books, or simply by talking to people.
Reason #3: News limits understanding
The news explains nothing. News is like little bubbles that burst above the surface of a deeper world. News agencies sometimes take pride in presenting facts accurately. But these facts are a byproduct of deeper causes. Both news organizations and news consumers are mistaken when they think that dry facts lead to an understanding of the world.
Facts themselves are not as important as the threads that connect them. In fact, we need to understand the processes underlying the facts. We need to grasp how everything works.
Unfortunately, very few news organizations explain the real reasons behind significant social, political, and environmental shifts, as the processes leading to these changes are almost invisible. They are complex, nonlinear, and difficult for our brains to grasp. Why do news organizations prefer easy content: scandals, anecdotes, human interest stories, images? The answer is simple—this content is cheaper to produce. In contrast, important topics are not just stories; they are powerful transformative movements that do not attract much attention from journalists.
Many people believe that the more information they have, the better decisions they can make. News organizations support this belief. After all, it’s in their interest! But does accumulating facts bring you closer to a better understanding of the world? Unfortunately, no. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The more “little facts” you consume, the less understanding you have of the bigger picture.
There is no evidence that information-dependent people make better decisions. They are certainly not better than the average person. If having more information led to financial success, journalists would be at the top of the pyramid. So that’s not the issue. We don’t know exactly what makes people successful, but it’s definitely not the accumulation of news snippets.
Reading the news to understand the world is worse than not reading anything at all. It’s better to completely avoid consuming news. It’s preferable to read books and insightful magazines instead of swallowing sensational headlines.
Reason #4: News is harmful to your health.
News constantly engages our limbic system. Panic-inducing stories lead to the release of glucocorticoids (cortisol). This disrupts the immune system and causes an increase in hormones. Simply put, the body is in a state of constant stress.
A high level of glucocorticoids leads to digestive disorders, suppression of cell growth, neuroses, and increased susceptibility to infections. News consumers risk their own health. Other side effects include fear, aggression, tunnel vision, and desensitization.
Reason #5: News significantly amplifies cognitive biases.
News feeds the mother of all cognitive biases — the tendency to confirm our own viewpoints (confirmation bias). We automatically dismiss information that contradicts our earlier beliefs in favor of information that supports those beliefs.
As Warren Buffett said, “What people are really good at is interpreting any new information in a way that leaves their previous conclusions untouched.” This is the tendency to confirm one’s own viewpoint. Consuming news, especially specialized news, exacerbates this flaw in our brains. As a result, we walk around in a cloud of seemingly confirming data, even though our theories about how the world works may be false. We become overconfident, take foolish risks, and underestimate opportunities.
News feeds another distortion — the tendency to believe in stories (story bias). Our brains love “neat” narratives, even if they don’t quite align with reality. And news organizations are more than happy to provide us with these fake tales. Instead of simply reporting that the market has dropped (or risen) by 2%, the television tells us: “The market fell by 2% due to X.” This “X” could be a profit forecast, fears about the euro, wage statistics, a government decision, a terrorist attack in Madrid, a subway strike in New York, a handshake between two presidents — really, anything at all.
This reminds me of college. My history textbook outlined seven (not six or five) reasons for the French Revolution. The thing is, we don’t know exactly why the revolution happened. And why it occurred in 1789. We also don’t know why the market goes up or down. Too many factors influence its movement. We don’t know why wars break out, how technological breakthroughs happen, or why oil prices fluctuate.
Any journalist who writes “the market rose because of X” or “the company went bankrupt due to Y” is an idiot. Of course, X may have had an impact, but that’s not fully established, and there are other influences that could be much more significant.
In most cases, news articles are just anecdotes and tales that lack any information for proper analysis. I’m fed up with this cheap way of explaining the world. It’s wrong. It’s irrational. It’s a deception. And I refuse to clutter my mind with it.
Reason #6: News slows down the thinking process.
Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires that we are not disturbed. News acts like free radicals that interfere with clear thinking. News is specifically designed to distract you. They are like viruses that steal our attention. And right now, it’s not about wasting time—I’ll get to that later. It’s about the inability to think clearly because you have opened yourself up to a stream of news that distracts you.
There are two types of memory. The capacity of long-term memory is virtually infinite. The capacity of short-term memory is extremely limited—try repeating ten digits of a phone number after hearing them just once. The transition from short-term to long-term memory is a bottleneck in our brain, and everything you want to understand must pass through it. If this pathway is blocked, nothing will get through. News reduces concentration, which in turn weakens understanding.
The brain needs time to warm up. Transitioning into a state of concentration requires at least 10 minutes of reading. In less time, our brain processes information in vain, barely retaining anything in memory. News is like the wind blowing on our face. Can you recall the top 10 news stories from a month ago? If you’re struggling to remember anything, you’re not alone. So why consume information that doesn’t actually increase our knowledge?
The negative effect of news on the internet is even stronger. In 2001, two Canadian researchers found that understanding the context decreases as the number of links in an article increases. Why? Because every time you see a link, your brain needs at least a minute to decide whether to click on it or not. This deliberation has a distracting effect.
News consumers are poor at determining the importance of information, and online news consumers are generally bad at everything. News is a distracting system. It grabs attention only to confuse later. In addition to low blood sugar levels, news is the biggest obstacle to clear thinking.
Reason #7: News changes the structure of your brain.
News operates like a drug. A news story unfolds, and we naturally want to know what happens next. The more of these stories you have in your mind, the harder it becomes to resist and ignore that desire. Why are news updates so addictive? Once you develop the habit of checking the news, you find yourself wanting to check it more often. Your attention is drawn to rapidly evolving stories, and you feel a thirst for more information about them.
This is related to the mechanism of long-term potentiation and the reward system in our brain. Addicts require more of the drug because they need greater stimulation to feel satisfied. If you focus on other things—like literature, science, history, cooking, or taking care of a dog—anything at all, you will concentrate on that. That’s how our brain works. Previously, scientists believed that the dense connections of 100 million neurons in our brain were fixed once we reached adulthood. Now we know that’s not the case. The human brain is highly plastic. Nerve cells constantly break old connections and form new ones.
As soon as we adapt to a new cultural phenomenon like news consumption, our brains change. The adaptation to news occurs on a biological level. News reprograms us. This means our brains function differently even when we are not consuming news. And that is dangerous.
The more news we consume, the more we develop the neural connections responsible for quick analysis and multitasking. But who will develop the connections responsible for thoughtful reading and focused thinking in the meantime?
Most news consumers, even those who used to read a lot, are losing the ability to engage with long articles and books. After four or five pages, they become fatigued, their concentration wanes, and anxiety increases. This isn’t happening because they are getting older or lack time. The physical structure of their brains has changed.
I quote Professor Michael Merzenich, a pioneer in neuroplasticity: “We train our brains to pay attention to nonsense.” Thoughtful reading and deep thinking are essentially the same thing. When you consume news, the structure of your brain changes. Your way of thinking changes. Regaining the ability to concentrate and contemplate requires a complete withdrawal from news, no more, no less.
Reason #8: News is expensive.
News takes up our time and drains our productivity in three ways.
First, calculate the time spent consuming news. This is the time you spend reading, listening to, or watching.
Secondly, add in the time it takes to switch your attention. This is the time you spend getting back to tasks that the news has distracted you from. You need time to regroup. What were you working on before? Every time you get sidetracked by the news, refocusing takes longer.
Thirdly, the news distracts us even after we’ve “digested” all the hot topics. Snippets of text and vivid images can pop into our heads hours or even days after reading the news, pulling us away from our thought processes.
For example, you read the newspaper for 15 minutes every morning, watch the news for 15 minutes during lunch, and spend another 15 minutes before bed. Add another 5 minutes here and there while you’re at the office to catch up on things. In total, you’re losing half a day each week. Half a day—what for?
On a planetary scale, this is a massive loss of productivity.
Let’s take the terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008 as an example. The terrorists killed 200 people for the chilling purpose of self-promotion. Suppose a billion people spent one hour of their attention watching news on television and reflecting on the tragedy. This is a rough estimate, but it’s not a random number. There are a billion people living in India alone. Many Indians spent days in front of the TV, following the dramatic events. A billion people multiplied by a billion hours amounts to more than 100,000 years. The average life expectancy today is 66 years. This means approximately 2,000 lives were consumed by news consumption. This is far more than the number of people killed. In a way, news anchors became unwitting accomplices to the terrorists.
The tragedy in Mumbai at least had some impact on the world. Consider the lost hours during Michael Jackson’s death—there was no substance in the reports and millions of hours wasted.
Information is no longer a scarce commodity. Unlike attention.
Reason #9: News destroys the connection between reputation and achievement.
Reputation affects how people interact in society. In our ancient past, a person’s reputation was directly tied to their achievements. You saw your tribesman kill a tiger with his bare hands and you tell everyone how brave he is.
With the advent of mass news production, a strange concept of “fame” has infiltrated society. Fame is deceptive, as people generally become famous for actions that have little impact on our lives. The media bestows fame upon movie stars and television hosts for essentially nothing.
The news destroys the connection between reputation and achievement. Even worse, bad fame overshadows the accomplishments of those whose contributions were more significant.
Reason #10: News is written by journalists.
A good journalist spends time preparing an article, checking facts, and trying to understand the essence of the matter. However, like in any profession, journalism has its share of incompetent and dishonest individuals who lack the time or ability for in-depth analysis.
You might not notice the difference between a flawless professional report and a hastily written article by a self-serving journalist that focuses on word count. It all looks like news.
In my estimation, less than 10% of articles are authentic. Less than 1% of articles actually investigate anything. And only once every 50 years do journalists uncover something like Watergate. Many journalists rush to create news based on other news, well-known facts, superficial analysis, and anything they can find online.
Journalists copy chunks of text from one another without bothering to check or correct the intermediate versions. Copying copies of other copies amplifies the flaws and the uselessness of the stories. Is this garbage really worth taking up space in your mind?
Reason #11: Facts are sometimes wrong, but forecasts are always wrong.
Sometimes the facts in the news are simply incorrect. With the reduction of editorial budgets in most publications, fact-checking is at risk of disappearing.
The New Yorker magazine is famous for its fact-checking. It is said that when an article mentions the Empire State Building, someone from the fact-checking department is required to go and visually confirm that the building is in its place. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but the point is clear.
Today, fact-checkers are an endangered species in most news organizations. Many news stories include predictions, but accurate forecasting is impossible in our complex world. Everything suggests that the predictions made by journalists, financial analysts, military experts, and technology specialists are almost always wrong. So why bother reading this nonsense?
Did newspapers predict World War I, the Great Depression, the sexual revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergence of the internet, antibiotic resistance, the decline in birth rates in Europe, and the increase in depression rates? You might find a few accurate forecasts amidst a sea of mistakes.
Inaccurate forecasts are not just useless; they are harmful. You can increase the accuracy of your predictions by turning off the news and rolling dice instead. Or, if you’re ready for a deep analysis, read books and reputable journals to understand how the invisible forces that influence the world operate.
Reason #12: News is manipulative.
Evolution has gifted us with an excellent lie detector during face-to-face interactions. We automatically notice attempts at manipulation, paying attention to words, gestures, or facial expressions. We can see when our conversation partner is nervous or blushing, notice sweaty palms, or even detect body odor. When we lived in small groups, we almost always knew the background of the person we were talking to. Information was always accompanied by additional metadata.
In today’s world, even the most attentive reader finds it difficult to distinguish biased news from interested parties. So why should we bother reading it? Many news stories contain hidden advertising bias, reflect the concealed interests of media owners (corporate bias), and almost all media outlets report only what everyone else is talking about while avoiding topics that might offend someone (mainstream bias). The PR industry, which is as large as the news industry, is the best evidence that journalists and news organizations can be manipulated—at the very least, influenced. Corporations, politicians, and other organizations wouldn’t spend such enormous sums on PR if it didn’t work.
If even journalists, who are supposed to have an inherent skepticism towards organizations, can be manipulated, then why do you think you are immune to these tricks?
Take, for example, the story of the nurse Nayirah. Nayirah was a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti who testified before the U.S. Congress during the lead-up to the Gulf War in 1991. She claimed to have witnessed Iraqi soldiers killing infants. Almost all news outlets covered this story. The public was outraged, and it pushed the U.S. Congress to initiate the war. In the end, Nayirah’s testimony, which was presented as credible, turned out to be military propaganda.
Journalists shape the overall picture and the stories for discussion. They set the public agenda. Wait a minute, do we really want journalists to set the public agenda? It seems to me that an agenda shaped by journalists is a flawed form of democracy.
Reason #13: News makes us passive.
News is almost always focused on stories that we cannot influence. This fosters a fatalistic outlook among readers.
Compare this to our ancient past. Evolution has taught us to act after receiving information. But the daily repetition of news that we can do nothing about makes us passive. It drains our energy. It seeps into our minds until we start to see the world as negative, indifferent, sarcastic, and fatalistic.
The brain, when faced with a barrage of ambiguous information and unable to respond, reacts with passivity and a victim mentality. There is even a scientific term for this — learned helplessness.
I might be exaggerating, but it seems to me that news consumption at least partially contributes to the spread of depression in the world. If you overlay everything on a timeline, you can see that the rise in depression almost perfectly coincides with the flourishing of mass media. It could be a coincidence, or perhaps the constant mentions of fires, floods, and losses (even if they happen far away) directly influence the increasing number of unhappy people.
Reason #14: News creates an illusion of care.
Kathleen Norris (although I don’t share most of her ideas) once said: “We may want to feel connected as our gaze glides from one news item to another, with a report on an NBA star on the screen and stock quotes running below. But the relentless bombardment of words and images makes us incapable of caring.”
The news wraps us in a warm feeling of unity with the entire planet. We are all citizens of the world. We are all connected. Our planet is a global village. We sing “We Are the World” and wave little flames from our lighters in perfect harmony with thousands of people around us. This gives us a glowing, cozy feeling that creates the illusion of care but leads nowhere. This beautiful picture of brotherhood among all living things resembles a huge chimera.
The thing is, news doesn’t bring us closer together. We become closer when we interact in person.
Reason #15: News Kills Creativity
The things we all know limit our creativity. This is one of the reasons why writers, mathematicians, composers, and entrepreneurs create their most creative works when they are young. Their minds thrive on the space and freedom that allow them to come up with new ideas.
I don’t know a single truly creative person who is also an information addict, rather than a writer, composer, mathematician, doctor, scientist, musician, designer, architect, or artist. On the other hand, I know quite a few minds devoid of creativity who consume news like a drug.
The negative effect on creativity can be explained by an even simpler factor that we discussed earlier—distraction. I just can’t imagine coming up with a new idea while constantly being distracted by the news.
If you’re looking for new solutions, don’t read the news.
What to do?
Don’t read the news. At all. Go completely cold turkey. Make news as unreachable as possible. Delete all news apps from your phone. Sell your TV. Cancel your news subscriptions. Don’t touch newspapers and magazines in airports and train stations. Don’t set news websites as your default homepage. Let it be a page that never changes. The more stability, the better. Remove all news websites from your bookmarks. All widgets and apps from your desktop.
If you want to maintain the illusion and not miss out on “something important,” I recommend reading the summary page in The Economist. But don’t spend more than 5 minutes on it.
Read magazines and books that explain how the world works—Science, Nature, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly. Read publications that connect the dots and aren’t afraid to explain the complexities of our world or simply entertain us. The world is complex, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Therefore, you need to read long articles and books that reflect this complexity.
Try to read a book a week. Better yet, aim for two or three. It’s great if the subject is history, biology, or psychology. By reading, you’ll gain a better understanding of how the world works. It’s better to go deeper than wider. Choose material that truly interests you. Enjoy the reading experience. The first week will be the hardest. The decision not to check the news requires discipline. You’re battling the mechanisms that are ingrained in your brain.
At first, you may feel out of place, perhaps even socially isolated. Every day, you’ll be tempted to check a news website. Don’t do it. You’re in recovery. Live for 30 days without news. After a month, your attitude towards the news will be much lighter.
You will find that you have more free time, greater focus, and a deeper understanding of the world. After a while, you’ll realize that even despite your news fast, you haven’t missed and won’t miss any important facts. If any information is truly significant for your profession, your company, your family, or your community, you will hear about it. From friends, from your mother-in-law — from anyone you interact with. When you meet up with friends, ask them what’s important happening in the world. It’s a great way to start a conversation. Although most of the time, you’ll probably hear in response that nothing important is happening.
Are you afraid of becoming a hermit because of your news-free existence? Well, you probably won’t know that Lindsay Lohan went to jail, but at least you’ll have more intellectual facts to share with your friends. You can talk about the cultural significance of the food you eat or the discovery of exoplanets. People will appreciate that.
Good news
Society needs journalists. But a different kind.
Investigative journalism is crucial for any society. We need more hardcore journalists uncovering significant stories. We need reports that hold our society accountable and reveal the truth. The best example is Watergate. However, important investigations don’t always have to come in the form of news. Often, urgency is not as important.
Long articles in magazines and books are a great platform for discussions and investigative journalism. And since you’ve given up reading the news, you’ll now have time to read all of this.