Stop Reading the News
News is to the mind what sugar is to the body. In 2013 Rolf Dobelli stood in front of a roomful of journalists and proclaimed that he did not read the news. It caused a riot. Now he finally sets down his philosophy in detail. And he practises what he preaches: he hasn't read the news for a decade. Stop Reading the News is Dobelli's manifesto about the dangers of the most toxic form of information - news. He shows the damage it does to our concentration and well-being, and how a misplaced sense of duty can misdirect our behaviour. From the author of the bestselling The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli's book offers the reader guidance about how to live without news, and the many potential gains to be had: less disruption, more time, less anxiety, more insights. In a world of increasing disruption and division, Stop Reading the News is a welcome voice of calm and wisdom.
Stats for nerds
8recommend
15mentions
11people
2020–2026years
80% recommend20% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- FTFA
"The experiment had revealed an “extremely undesirable, and previously unidentified, side effect of warnings: the more often older adults were told that a claim was false, the more likely they were to remember it erroneously as true after a three day delay,” they wrote. (While the researchers fixated on older adults, the data itself shows that this is a cross-generational issue.)
"People walked into that study pretty sure that shark fins didn’t treat arthritis. They were told repeatedly that shark fins do not treat arthritis. And they walked out of the study believing that shark fins treat arthritis.",,,
"We need to go on an informational diet. We need to become more discerning with what we want to know and what we need to know."
END FTFA
IOW follow Rolf Dobelli's advice and "Stop reading the news!":
https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Reading-News-information-overloa...
- Rolf Dobelli wrote an excellent book on this topic called "Stop Reading the News: A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life". He addresses directly many of the objections raised in these comments.
- There is a great book about this from Rolf Dobelli "Stop Reading The News" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48581422-stop-reading-th...
- Can recommend Rolf Dobelli's "Stop Reading the News: A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life"
- Stop Reading the News. Hook that in with The Subtle Art of Not giving a fuck, and finish with Turning the Mind into an Ally, and I find reflecting on all three has helped me to focus on what's important.
I no longer waste so much time on trivial unimportant nonsense.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stop-Reading-News-information-overl...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuit...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turning-Mind-into-Sakyong-Mipham/dp...
- I suggest people who read a lot of news to read up on Rolf Dobelli's book named Stop Reading the news.
I found it an eye-opener and have since blocked all news websites on every device. Currently 3 weeks without a newspaper and I don't feel I am missing a thing.
The best chapters were the ones were he explained with great examples how irrelevant the news was, how news would make you less creative and feel much smaller than you really are.
Now, he also clearly tries to distinguish news and longreads. If your paper is a daily paper than tries to be very generic... you can skip it. If your paper is a medical journal and your profession is a doctor. Keep reading that medical journal.
For all social media... just delete your account and hold out for a week of withdrawal symptoms. You won't miss a thing.
