Stop Reading the News

Watching the news in recent years has become a desperate experience. An avalanche of online access and the billionaire, corporate takeover of previously trusted sources have made the whole experience overtly depressing. News in Lockdown has amplified that feeling; a feeling that the world is closing in on us, not expanding as we would like it. But for those of us brought up on the news- Question Time since you can remember; a newspaper as part of the wallpaper of your day- giving up reading the news might appear anathema. However, it could, according to Rolf Dobelli, seriously enhance your mental health.

Of course, we need the news, you might say. We need to know what’s going on in the world. We need to read the news if we are to be part of an informed Democracy. Dobelli argues eloquently that, while recognising that news is important, the news that we habitually absorb – through social media, through our national papers in the UK and, let’s face it, on 24-hour TV, does little to change us in the way we would like to think it did. For what we think me might glean from the news – developing empathy for others through an awareness of current affairs -might just be doing the opposite.

The writer’s premise appears to be that, while we affect empathy for those suffering for the most terrifying injustices in the world, we really look for a reason to feel better about ourselves and our world view. Empathy, he argues, implies action: how often do we feel outraged by an atrocity or a natural disaster and actually do anything about it? He asks us to think about what our access to the ‘news’ does for us. How does it change us? And, more importantly, what might happen if we suddenly stopped reading and listening to the news? What would change in the world? How would we change as individuals?

Well, for a start, it might remind us that, as individuals, we can change nothing. We might go through our days in a more calm, focused manner, knowing that there is little we really need to know. What is important will come to us. Could we really have avoided knowing about Covid without the news? Does our desire to know what is happening merely cause us stress and despair at a time when mental health is more of an issue than ever before. Dobelli goes on to argue that what causes most stress is our inability to change things out with our control. So, is it really a problem if we don’t spend much of our days reading about them?

So, what would change if you spent the rest of the week avoiding the news? You’ll probably begin to realise that life goes on regardless. You’ve been incapable of changing anything by being plugged in to twenty four hour news. More importantly you may well begin to feel much calmer, more content. Certainly less angry. It may allow us the time – we angry, middle-aged white men – to shut the hell up for a while and listen to others. Not being as knowledgeable as we like to think we are might be a comforting release. And, let’s face it, some of us might benefit from that.