WTWN #83 - The Art of Living With the News
Our news addiction is making us unhealthy
Feeling overwhelmed by the hour-after-hour onslaught of so-called news again? Does the world feel as if it’s speeding up?
You’re not alone.
Even before the 2024 election, I took what I’d learned from surviving Trump 1.0 and started postponing and managing my news consumption more carefully.
In my recent essay about resilience, I mentioned how my participation in NaNoWriMo in November greatly aided this shift—working on a memoir made limiting my news consumption easier.
One strategy was to avoid looking at my phone for news, podcasts, emails, or any notifications until I’d finished my morning writing session between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. This wasn’t a new idea—I had already turned off most notifications on my phone years ago, keeping only the essentials like texts and phone calls. However, with the added inspiration of Oliver Burkeman and his BBC podcast Living With The News, I toned down my news consumption even further, leaving only one news source active for notifications: The New York Times.
It also helps that I live in Finland, which shifts me slightly off the news cycle. My time zone is six hours ahead of Washington's, so I can get a head start on my day before things happen in the USA.
My decision to limit my news consumption to certain types of reading (more long-form journalism and fewer soundbites) directly results from Trump 2.0. During the first Trump administration, I was bombarded daily by reports of his antics. I spent too much mental bandwidth on a megalomaniac who thrived on attention, both positive and negative. I have even less interest now than before in giving him my attention.
So far, it’s worked. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice nothing surprising—Trump is doing exactly what he said he would. I find very little “news” that requires my response or requires me to check notifications constantly. When I do, I become unnecessarily irritated without being more prepared to do anything except complain.
What would it matter if you didn’t know when you went to bed that Trump had threatened Colombia with 25% tariffs only to find out in the morning that he had reversed his decision?
Oliver Burkeman’s "Living With the News" explores strategies for managing the overwhelming nature of modern news consumption, focusing on maintaining mental clarity and emotional resilience. Burkeman argues that:
News is inherently artificial: News consists of selected events shared by others, often designed to provoke strong emotional reactions rather than provide actionable insights.
The 24-hour news cycle harms well-being: Constant exposure to breaking news and notifications creates unnecessary anxiety and distraction, leaving little room for deep thought or meaningful engagement.
You don’t need to know everything immediately: Most news is not urgent or directly relevant to one’s daily life. Truly vital information—such as local emergencies—will often reach you through other channels.
Deep knowledge surpasses shallow updates: Reading books or long-form journalism on complex topics provides far greater understanding than piecing together fragments of daily news.
Intentional consumption is key: Burkeman advocates setting boundaries around news intake, such as designating specific times for reading or disabling notifications entirely.
By reframing one’s relationship with the news, Burkeman suggests staying informed while protecting one’s focus, mental health, and sense of agency is possible.
Burkeman’s “Living With the News” podcast (also available as an Audible eBook) reminded me that news is artificial when you get down to it. Things happen, of course, but they only become “news” when shared. And anyone who shares “news” has a vested interest in telling it to you in such a way as to make you engage. In days of old, to share the news, someone might have ridden miles on horseback, unrolled it from a scroll, and prefaced it with a “Hear ye, hear ye.” Nowadays, sharing news is so easy that its sheer volume has become problematic. And most of it is neither relevant nor actionable.
I was prompted to explore this more deeply because I am a self-professed news junkie. My addiction dates to September 11, 2001, after which, while sitting at my desk where I manned the IT helpdesk, I obsessively refreshed CNN’s homepage, sometimes minutes apart, for updates. Back then, at least, the news was limited to my desktop computer. Now, with smartphones, notifications arrive relentlessly, and it’s overwhelming.
Over the years, I have subscribed to major outlets like CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, but I’ve gradually cut back. For example, I allow only one news source, The New York Times, to send me notifications. Additionally, my deeper reading comes from subscriptions to The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Guardian, and Wired. (I canceled my Washington Post subscription after Jeff Bezos refused to allow the editors to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 election—a move that dismayed many.)
But none of this is a partisan issue. People across the political spectrum are overwhelmed by too many notifications about issues and events that mostly aren’t relevant to them. You need to know about a few things the moment they become news. Constant updates don’t make you more prepared to act or do something about the situation.
I’ve considered the rare “what if” scenarios: What if there’s an emergency, like poison in the drinking water or an imminent alien invasion, and I miss the news? Realistically, in such cases, someone would inform me by phone, text, or even knocking on my door. Indeed, genuinely urgent news has ways of finding its way to you.
This principle extends to social media. I’ve been fine without Facebook notifications for over five years. If something significant happens, like the death of a friend, my wife or someone else will tell me. Most people don’t seem offended if I miss an update; many probably envy my ability to disconnect.
Another of Burkeman’s insights—that you can read all the news articles, listen to podcasts, and follow updates about a topic but still know less than you would by reading a book—resonates deeply. For instance, if you want to understand World War II, you’ll learn more from a book than from a series of news reports. Books provide context and depth that news simply can’t.
Take, for example, the Finnish novel Unknown Soldiers by Väinö Linna, which I’m reading right now. That novel gives me a more profound understanding of Finland’s Continuation War than any news article could. It also gave me insight into what soldiers defending their country from an aggressor like Russia might feel—a perspective relevant to understanding Ukrainians today without following every news update.
Email notifications are another source of distraction, but that’s a topic for another essay. Suffice it to say, relegating news consumption to a specific time of day—like the old habit of reading the newspaper over breakfast—is healthier and more manageable. The 24-hour news cycle may be making us sick, and there’s evidence to support that.
I’ve found myself happier and more energetic the more notifications I disable. Yet, despite this manifesto, I hope to remain pretty well-informed. When I want information, I seek it out intentionally. The time I save not reacting to notifications allows me to dive deeply into books and topics I care about.
I’m reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk (available on Spotify eBooks with your subscription). When I finish it, I’ll likely better understand Musk’s actions and motivations than I would by following his latest shenanigans on social media. From what I’ve read so far, it’s becoming clear that, like Trump, Musk is a profoundly wounded, narcissistic individual who struggles with criticism and acts impulsively. Reading his biography has given me more clarity than any breaking news alert ever could.
The sad byproduct of reading it is that it makes me want to buy a Tesla.