I’ve never been on FB, and I’m really glad.
These are great comments, y’all. Thanks!
I almost completely stopped watching the news before the November election, it was frankly a big relief. I still hear about major things, but not over and over. The news is too many negative things that I can’t do anything about.
I started watching again to see what the national and international news was saying about my local city, but I’m about burnt out on that now.
I don’t watch it. Might skim over stories on line if they interest me. There is a moratorium on Trump in the house hold. Husband was for…me not at all…made for tense discussions.
I think Tina Fey has a very good idea with sheetcaking.
I stay away from my parents’ house and spend more time having civil discussion with my dogs.
Increasingly I’m avoiding the hysteria of news peddlers.
If we’re not actually at war, I can live without it.
*Recently I went a whole 3 days without checking the baseball standings. It felt good.
This. Try watching an entire cycle of both national and local news programs, then ask yourself: “What am I doing differently because of what I learned?” The answer is almost always Nothing. Then ask: “Of the few things which did alter my daily path, which ones had an immediate effect?” Answer: Weather report, and occasionally traffic.
To ThelmaLou, I check Reuters on weekends, read the SDMB daily, and time-shift weather/traffic with the DVR before heading out for the day.
As far as the all-consuming events and outrages du jour, I’ve stopped talking, I’ve stopped listening, and I’ve stopped caring.
What pullin said. I’ll watch a local station for weather/wildfire news, and stopped giving a fuck about pretty much everything else, going on almost a year now. 
I’ve had to disengage from Facebook because all my activist friends are currently dominating my feed with anti Trump memes, fist-thumping sermons, etc. I love each of them individually, but as a group they’re insufferable. When a few of them chastise others for “not caring” because they’re posting “photos of unicorn farts and sunshine”, I’m outta there.
Ordinarily I’m a news junkie, but ever since the election I’ve been distancing myself except for gleaning my NPR app on my phone. Ditto Reuters. I’ve also been doing more things offline.
Because of my particular occupation, I have the burden of *having *to follow news, even political news. OTOH since for that same reason I have to try and seek out and focus upon those items that may translate into something we may need and/or be able to do or say something about (or at least not be caught unaware), it’s essential to filter out whatever provides no new or more useful information. So it’s a matter of going for quality rather than quantity and knowing your sources, and at some point saying that is enough.
Poorly. Particularly since last weekend’s events in Charlottesville. It brought back some unpleasant memories of tangling with white supremacists half a lifetime ago. (Even if you’re white, they don’t care for people shining the light on their actions and beliefs.)
Anyway, I’m mostly unplugging this weekend, and I’m working on unplugging during the week after hearing one round of NPR’s news. I’m meditating again, too.
I’m growing weary of Facebook too. But it’s because my friends have a bizarre need to show me pictures of their dinner, along with messages that Jesus is really lonely and wants me to “Like” his picture.
Pretty much what pullin said a couple posts ago.
Other than the outbreak of WWIII, none, and I mean none, of this stuff is real time decision-making info. As much as each and every new outlet breathlessy screams: “You NEED this info!!!”. What they really mean is “Our advertisers NEED your attention.”
I read a weekly newsmagazine every week. That has the result of filtering out most of the noise and leaving some fraction of the news and events that have significance lasting longer than 2 hours.
Best of all most of it is written about an event that’s then several days in the past, which means they have the benefit of more of the reality filtering out versus the pure rumor and confusion of the “up to the moment” live- and social- media flood.
Just leaving out the wild exaggeration and uninformed speculation of the first 2 hours after a truly newsworthy event is a yuuge improvement.
The other significant advantage to a printed pub over an online one is that space is not infinite. The vast majority of what rocks the masses on TwitFace is essentially local news being given a national or global platform. By them having to condense everything that happened nationally or worldwide into a few dozen pages, they’re required to filter out almost all of the minor crap.
The current 7.5 billion humans create one hell of a lot of mischief every single day. The 1.5 billion humans back in 1917 made just as much mischief per capita. The difference was that 100 years ago we *all *didn’t get exposed to *all *of it; only our own very local = almost infinitesimal subset of it.
Much like we’re still learning the boundaries of sharing versus privacy in an online fully connected world, we’re still learning the boundaries between “stuff that happened” and “stuff that happened that it makes sense for me to know about, much less care about.”
One last thought: If you want weather, visit your national weather service website, not your local TV or print news media site. You’ll get the info you seek without hype and without the attached baggage of clickbaits to so-called news.
If you want traffic info, consult an appropriate map/traffic app or site, not your local TV or print news media site. You’ll get the info you seek without hype and without the attached baggage of clickbaits to so-called news.
There was a time when turning on the local TV news and waiting was the only way a layman could get weather or local traffic. That hasn’t been true for 20 years now. Time to update your habits if you’re still doing that.
Late add:
And never browse without comprehensive ad blocking. Half the freneticism of modern life is just UI noise you can filter out with a simple download or browser config. Opt out of their deliberate crazy-making.
Jane Austen audiobooks.
I wish there were more than six.
You have to realize that the media will never, ever say, “Everything’s okay. Stop paying attention to us.”
It’s on you to draw your own boundaries.
Surprisingly I don’t have a lot of dinner photos on my feed unless it’s something I post, LOL. Two Jesus lovers, both of whom are acquaintances and therefore we seldom connect. I just scroll right on by their posts.
I’ve found that the most active people on my feed are people I’ve met online. Real life people either don’t post at all, post once every blue moon, or only post family photos.
Thankfully Canadians (and Scots) don’t share Jesus stuff. That would drive me to blockage.
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I stopped watching TV eight years ago. That helps a lot.
I’ve cut down on the amount of news I read and listen to super duper happy music. ELO’s greatest hits anyone?
Excluding a really small number of rabid, violent people, the world is a reasonable place. We shouldn’t be fighting each other over a few idiots.