No News is Good News
My daily news consumption had gotten out of hand and I knew it was time to break the habit
It had been building up for several months. Laughter giving way to anger. Joy slipping into depression. My heartbeat slamming into a Buddy Rich drum solo without warning. Consumed by a very real feeling that there was no hope for the future — that life as I knew it was rapidly coming to an end.
This daily drudgery would start moments after waking up … and watching the morning news. Then after a couple of hours, reading the morning news. And in free moments during the day, searching the internet for the same news stories that ignited my original maelstrom hours earlier.
Hello, my name is Kevin and I'm a Newsaholic.
Did you catch the connection? News. A word defined as "an account of human activity seeking to interest, inform, or educate the reader." The only thing news was educating me about was finding a good reason to stop reading.
Hello, my name is Kevin and I'm a Newsaholic. And as such, my life took an ugly turn. Getting drunk on angry comments spewed by talking heads. Hammered on talk show hosts "destroying" public figures I detested.
Pie-eyed on predictions by pundits regarding politicians "wearing orange jumpsuits" — all of these and more, fueling my fantasies of revenge and retribution. Lather, rinse, repeat foaming at the mouth.
The time had come to break this habit before it broke me.
You would be correct in thinking this isn't a very healthy way to spend one's "golden years." And it took you only a few million minutes less than me to reach that same conclusion.
It's very strange. For the sake of my physical health, I would never willingly consume rotten meat, sour milk or platypus eggs. Yet here I was willingly doing something that produced similar ill effects on my emotional wellbeing. The time had come to break this habit before it broke me.
Curbing My News Consumption
The first move was to change my news feed topics to "food" and "entertainment" (one-skillet meals and celebrity gossip always nourishing my soul). Second, I vowed to avoid any YouTube videos that didn't involve pop music, old movies or funny goat videos.
The third life change — giving up traditional ways of news consumption — would prove to be the most difficult. My earliest TV memories, in fact, are of Captain Kangaroo, the Three Stooges, and Huntley and Brinkley.
I no longer deliberately subject myself to informational overload.
While other kids were reading comic books, I eagerly awaited the arrival of Life magazine in the mail. And how I envied moviegoers of the past who watched newsreels before the main feature!
This strangely thrilling love affair started to turn rancid in the last few years. Either the news was getting worse, or I was getting old. Or, more likely, it was an ill-fitting combination of the two. On January 1 of this year, I made a vow to seriously curb my cable news viewings and quickly scroll past any item on my laptop or phone that resembled real life.
While going entirely cold turkey is impossible short of moving to a cave in the Philippines, I no longer deliberately subject myself to informational overload.
As a recovering newsaholic, my pulse has returned to a normal rate. I no longer find myself yelling at video screens. I've forgotten who used to drive me crazy. If something important happens that demands my attention, I'll hear about it and investigate if necessary.
Otherwise, from now on you'll find me watching videos of goats bleating angrily at innocent bystanders. It's better than me doing the same thing.
