I got a lot of my headlines from reddit. Due to the impending death of my favorite app (Sync for Reddit) however, that’s coming to an end.
I’m now realising my Reddit experience had deteriorated slowly, just doomscrolling the hours away wasn’t healthy and I’m even kind of glad this is a good reason to end it. However, reddit has been really useful for news, especially the comments (taken with the right amount of skepticism) could be very informative.
I hope Lemmy builds something similar, but the defederation of beehaw’s news has been a setback.
What would be a good alternative, going forward, for getting news and backgrounds from varied, trustworthy en unbiased sources?
I think it’s best to never read the news, you’ll find about stuff that actually affects you naturally anyway.
Focus on communities for your hobbies and career instead.
I’d argue that one should not stop reading the news forever because you’ll just become increasingly disconnected from what happens around you. As with all things, reading news in moderation and not doomscrolling is the way I think.
Yeah agreed. I think limiting it - great, yes, 100% do that. I tend to look through important news things on Sundays (usually via scrolling through a few sites - SBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, and then doing a bit more research about topics that interest me), and then not really engaging outside of then.
I’m not into ignoring the news and figuring that important things will naturally come through to me, both because there are important things that happen which won’t necessarily come up in regular conversation, and also because people - no matter how much I trust them - are going to give their own spin on things. So you both risk missing out on important news, and gaining important news through a skewed lens.
(I don’t mean to imply that the media doesn’t skew the lens of news, which is why I visit a few different sites.)
Absolutely agree with your approach. Also not being aware about news at all might make those in power get away with passing nocive legislation without much resistance from the population.
But you naturally will hear about important stuff anyway or see it on headlines in the supermarket, etc.
Like when the Ukraine war started, the Ukrainians and Russians had a flame-war on the company slack.
And if we really were going to die by climate disaster, nuclear war, pandemics, etc. isn’t it better not to know until it happens anyway?
You can’t spend your life worrying about things that will materialise decades from now, or are going on thousands of miles away. Focus on your own life and your own family and community.
I think Kbin replies are broken because I had to go to your profile to see your reply to me.
Anyways, I don’t think being reasonable up to date with whatever happens in your country or in the world means “worrying about things that will materialize decades from now or are going on thousands of miles away”.
For example, not watching news at all (I usually never use the TV nowadays) might make me miss some bad legislation that was/will be passed. I might miss protests against such things. Or I might be more prone to believing fake news about a certain topic (war in Ukraine for example).
But I completely agree one should not be 24/7 worrying about news.
But the protests make no difference anyway so why bother?
And why does your opinion on Ukraine matter, are you an admiral or field marshal? Can you change anything anyway?
Better to spend that time learning new songs on guitar, playing new video games, discovering new movies, or areas to go hiking, cities to go travelling, cooking and restaurants, etc. - actually enjoy life. It is short.
I beg to differ, protests matter. At least here (Romania) they made those in power revert some bad legislation after seeing massive protests. Don’t mean to insult or anything, but this apathic approach towards civil society is a big factor in eroding democracy.
Again, if enough people think a certain narrative then it will affect the events.
You can both have a decent awareness of things around you and enjoy life to its fullest in my opinion.
I just avoid the news. Sometimes it just “appears”, like hearing a radio somewhere, then I’ll listen to a little bit. Sometimes it’s quite surreal once you’ve been out of the loop long enough.
If anything important happens I have a friend who’s politically active and in the loop, he’ll tell me. Second-hand news is the best.
This. And you see how some stuff is just sensationalised bullshit.
Like I heard a little bit about the debt ceiling “crisis” - was like, I bet they’ll just make an agreement right before like last time… and then weeks later that’s exactly what happened.
There’s so much sensationalism and doomerism, it really isn’t healthy.
I like to keep up to date enough on the things my government chooses to do so that I can make an informed choice the next time I vote.