If possible at all, of course.
what do you really need to be up to date with these days? you’re gonna find out about really major changes anyways, just focus on the local things that you have even the slightest chance of maybe potentially slightly influencing.
shit’s fucked, shit sucks, we all know that, we don’t need to constantly remind ourselves that shit’s fucked, instead just do whatever you can to make the world a better place. And that starts with making sure you’re as mentally healthy as possible, which does not include making yourself feel awful.
The news is primarily billionaire propaganda. It does not add value to your life. When it’s important you’ll hear about it, and then you can read up. You don’t have to be the first to know. Nothing bad will happen to you for being less informed.
Good news readers can help you get lots of the content you want with only a quick passing glance at the headlines so you can still carry a conversation/contemplate the inescapability of this planet
If somebody talks about world news or politics, I’d rather drop the conversation. Willful ignorance is about maintaining a good state of mind, and that includes not talking to some people about such topics.
I block most news sources and get the jist of events via memes.
Are those who are well adjusted to a unjust world really the sane ones?
I’ve figured that I can either be informed or happy. Not both.
This is crazy, but i read the news on paper. I have a couple of subscriptions to magazines with good reporting, but you could also hit up your library to read for free. For one thing, print journalism is a lot more in-depth and balanced than the outrage-mill crap i find online.
On Lemmy i read headlines only in case something happens that i stay current, but i rarely read a whole article. This contains my news consumption to a small portion of my day.
Plus, Trump says 64 stupid lthings a week. I read all 64 in 1 hour each week and get it over with, instead of poisoning myself with it several times a day.
I try to read an equal amount of theory and history as I do news. Context is everything. When you read about these bastards doing evil deeds, read too about Mussolini hanging from a bridge. I enjoy learning about coups perpetrated by the CIA last century (there’s 70 of them) and all the horrendous fallout it caused so that I can taunt nationalists with facts about the nature of the empire that they’re only just now recognizing.
News is only a part of the process. Theory, praxis, cadre, in equal parts.
That’s the neat part. I don’t. I’m depressed as fuck.
And how does keeping up with current world events help you in that situation?
If something like 911 happens again you’d find out anyway, just an hour later that you would now.
I’m not being paid to care about all that benign bullshit so I don’t anymore
Because I don’t think sticking my head in the sand is good either. Besides, it’s not just abstract far away things that are bothering me. A lot of what depresses me in my personal life is connected to the broader problems we face as a society. I kind of can’t ignore that if I want to make sense of my own life. That doesn’t stop it from feeling hopeless, but the alternative isn’t really an option even if I didn’t care about others.
I was depressed before I kept up on current and past events.
You don’t.
I read news once a week and this is it
I have a large broken chest freezer I climb into, I shut the lid and scream
So thats how ice scream is made!
deleted by creator
I block news from all social media. Then I chose 2 news networks I thought had decent reporting and wasn’t too bias. Every morning I read news from the 2 sources and that is ALL the news I consume for that day. That’s it.
If this is too overwhelming even you can try starting with 1 news source. I find that news is mostly still pretty boring (in a good way) if you only look at 1 source.
I remind myself that news media have a vested interest in keeping me outraged and on the edge of my seat, addicted to consuming their every update.
There are definitely things worth getting outraged over. But on top of that we have an outrage industry harvesting our attention and fear for ad dollars.
So I remind myself not to spiral down the doomclick drain. If something is THAT important I’m going to hear about it. I don’t need to be checking a news app daily.
On top of this I do what I can to support change. We donate to Ukraine and Gaza relief efforts. We vote. We make our political views known to those around us to support right action in them as well (not talking about politics is what Trumpers want - they want cover for their fascist hate and violence - I make damn sure that everyone I know is aware that there’s no room for that shit in my life).
Conserve your strength. Do everything material that you can, and don’t spend yourself past that point.
But that first part is important: DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN.
Insert Invincible ‘you don’t’ meme here
But seriously, you can’t. You either choose to be ignorant of 99.99% of the world or to be ignorant of 99.9% of the world and live in a perpetual scramble to absorb all the disparate information. Most news isn’t worth knowing in and of itself, only serving as data to construct deeper understanding, so unless you are going to actually connect the dots, it’s a better use of your time to let the world act as a filter and only pay attention to what hangs around long enough to get through to you.
This too shall pass. I take comfort that the pendulum of politics has always swung back and forth. This moment of insanity should swing back to rebuilding, and progressive changes.
When I was in college, we had “the midnight scream”. During finals, entire dorms would open their windows at midnight and just scream. It was very effective at venting frustration, allowing us all to refocus on studying. Perhaps that’s what’s happening now: we’re all just screaming in frustration.
