Rose Bialk/The Mossy Log
In the digital age, we are constantly bombarded by current events. From traditional media outlets publishing downright depressing articles, to social media reposts and shares of the same, it feels as if the mostly-bad news is constantly following us. How can we protect our peace of mind without being completely out of touch with the world around us?
My solution is to step away from current events temporarily and live in blissful ignorance for a couple of days. Never taking a moment to step away from the constant flow of news forces us to live in a constant state of anxiety created and perpetuated by the climate we live in.
I am a native Minnesotan. I witnessed firsthand the George Floyd protests and riots that ravaged my beloved hometown. The video of his murder was shared non-stop on social media. Footage like that is traumatizing — we should not need to see that to know what is going on or what has happened. It is incredibly anxiety-inducing to watch your city burn down in front of you, blocks away from your closest friends. I could not escape the outpouring of news and reporting of what was happening to my home. There is minimal enjoyment in stress and displeasure at your surroundings.
Put the phone down, turn the podcasts off, offload Instagram, ignore calls from your grandpa and be ignorant for a few days — ignorance can be bliss. Just remember to tune back in eventually; you cannot be ignorant forever. As a society there is an expectation of awareness. If you cannot in the moment, commit to knowing all the facts or information that is okay, but that moment will pass.
When you are in a better headspace, go back a few days in the news cycle and catch up on everything — pirate The Wall Street Journal and look at what people are saying on X, formerly Twitter. The great thing about the internet is that everything is around forever; you can always read the news retrospectively. Momentary ignorance is forgivable — constant ignorance is a problem. You have a responsibility to be aware of what is going on in your community; you cannot live in a bubble or under a rock. Being constantly informed is not worth the harmful mental health consequences.
If completely rejecting media for a few days is not something you think you can do, intermix journalistic articles with some satire and comedy. Laughing and poking fun at the shithole we are living in can help alleviate that looming feeling of dread you get from reading The Huffington Post. Read an article from The Onion, watch John Oliver or Stephen Colbert — while we still can. Laugh the sadness away; it beats crying.
Alternatively, immerse yourself in current events of a different kind. Read Buzzfeed articles or look at PopCrave tweets, become so engrossed in pop culture news that you can redirect any questions asked about current events to the universal hatred of Taylor Swift’s latest album or the excitement toward Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. In conversation, you could even beat others to the punch — bring up pop culture before they can even mention current events. They will be so impressed by your knowledge of the Billboard Hot 100 that they will forget about the news they were going to talk to you about.
You can also read more digestible media; think infographics or the Instagram stories of your anarchist friends. Forget the political mumbo jumbo, give me something easy to understand. It is incredibly discouraging to read a news article and not understand the language. Reputable news sources often use heavily academic language which can be inaccessible to a large part of the population. The institution of journalism is heavily classist, from the language to the cost of accessing articles.
Like a good essay the point should be clear, not muddied up by nonsensical, journalistic jargon. It is easier to be engaged when you can understand what is going on. Give me the when, where, who, how and why. What I am asking for is not for all news to be ultra-simplified, but for there to be a sort of “The New York Times Lite” where the articles are short, snappy and give you the information straight with no extra words.
Short-form content is also a great medium for simplified news. The time restriction forces creators to get to their point a lot quicker. This pairs well with “The NYT Lite” because some people are better at processing things auditorily than optically. We have shifted to preferring short-form media due to our seemingly decreasing attention spans.
If none of these aforementioned options seem like they are for you, maybe just skim the news articles or the headlines. General awareness is better than no awareness. We do not need to be a vessel of statistics and quotes from the Associated Press; we just need to be generally aware of what is happening in the world around us.
In the process of becoming informed, we often neglect the effect that the news can have on us. We are living in a difficult time. Horrible things are constantly happening all around us, and societal norms dictate we should know every minute and every traumatizing detail of current events. Constant consumption of media is not the way to live your life, especially if that media is filled with human rights violations, death tolls and anxiety about the future. It is not a negative thing to be averse to negative news — I think it is a very human reaction, and it is time we accept that.
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