It does and it's important and I'm not suggesting people purposely ignore it, I just don't know how you get to the point where it's saturated your social feeds so much that you get this kind of phenomenon. I get a lot of news or people posting political commentary, which I enjoy seeing, but it's also mixed in with a lot of music or design or game dev stuff or whatever.
Like another comment here mentioned, the diversity of content (and maybe slightly less political news) is why people like HN, so maybe I've just been lucky to be able to 'curate' my Twitter similarly.
On the second thought, it seems like that's a very good question, for these two processes are maybe in a positive feedback loop. This year we pay more attention to news, and this makes us both more susceptible and more exposed to things like "the moment to act is now".
Sure, but sometimes the history involves a superpower teetering on the brink of fascist dictatorship, or a once-in-a-century pandemic wreaking havoc around the world. Events that will define the space of possibilities for decades to come.
At those times it’s a bit more important to stay at least partially informed than when the biggest crisis is a new highway project going over budget or a political leader’s extramarital affairs.
Agreed but as a slight tangent history is not about just recording the major events but the little ones too. Who knows what will be important in the future. Maybe that little startup that just got ignored on demo day is gonna change the world as we know it.
I agree, stay informed. But really.... How many times a day do you need to be updated on the recent developments and the current status?
In the past people would get their news once a day in the paper and then later at certain times on the radio and early TV. Is that enough to stay informed?
What has happened in the last 12 hours that I must know now instead of just catching a summary tomorrow morning?
In a nutshell, the article says that reading a lot of scary news causes anxiety, and if you listen to your therapist and steeply limit that reading and spend your time eating ice cream and watching cat videos instead, you can reduce that anxiety.
Sometimes anxiety (fear, rage) is well justified. Sometimes large-scale threats are real.
Like another comment here mentioned, the diversity of content (and maybe slightly less political news) is why people like HN, so maybe I've just been lucky to be able to 'curate' my Twitter similarly.