Emotional toll of constant negative news and unlimited access to ‘doomscrolling’ has led to record-high news avoidance

Emotional toll of constant negative news and unlimited access to ‘doomscrolling’ has led to record-high news avoidance

News has never been more accessible – but for some, that’s exactly the problem. Flooded with information and relentless updates, more and more people around the world are tuning out.

The reasons vary: for some it’s the sheer volume of news, for others the emotional toll of negative headlines or a distrust of the media itself. In online forums devoted to mindfulness and mental health, people discuss how to step back, from setting limits to cutting the news out entirely.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 hours ago

      Pick a reader (I use feeder on Android, seems good enough for me) and then try to add a couple of websites.

      I have 404 media, guardian US, and a few other news sites. I also subscribe to Corey Doctorow’s blog pluralistic. Then I have personal interest sites like pitchfork and the rolling stone.

      Many times you can subscribe by just entering the website URL, and I feel like with some of them (like the Atlantic, which is mostly dreck anyway IMO) don’t even know that they’re essentially giving you a free subscription. Occasionally, you’ll find articles that cut out after a time unless you’re a subscriber, but for the most part you get a lot of freebies.

      • Obi@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        5 hours ago

        Thanks for the tips! I’m gonna try this out. I’m not sure which websites would offer it, it’s mainly gonna be news websites right? With Lemmy I’m missing a lot of content related to my work/hobbies but I’m not sure there’s a ton of “news” websites that would cater to that (mainly would be for filmmaking/camera/3D/music), but I’ll look around.

        • aesthelete@lemmy.world
          1·
          4 hours ago

          I think sometimes the underlying website doesn’t even know they’re offering it because it’s built into the blogging software. I would think it’s going to be mostly supported by sites that follow an article style blogging format… So a lot of news, but probably other bloggers too.

          I’d also recommend picking a local affiliate and trying those out. I like getting news specific to my local area, and my local CBS affiliate has RSS support.