HOW TO CONSUME NEWS
People consume way too much news. No,
really. People are obsessed with news. They consume it from the moment they
wake up to the moment they go to sleep. They talk about it at work, to their
families, to their children, and even to themselves when they are in the bath.
It consumes their brains, pollutes every waking thought, contaminates every
conversation and muddies every relationship. It makes them argue positions on
issues that are not only too nascent to be opined upon, but are also matters on
which they have virtually no information. News makes people feel that something
they had no idea about till 5 minutes ago is responsible for every single
problem in the history of human affairs.
And
then 5 minutes later they have to start all over again because suddenly 10
kilos of fresh horrible news has landed on their mobile phones.
The
news is so uniformly horrific that people suddenly sit up in the middle of
lunch or a walk in the park and wonder: “Wait, why am I in a bad mood? I am not
sure why. But something is bothering me.” And just like that, life and flowers
and children and lakes and birds have passed them by because of the remnants of
a bad mood that they no longer recall the reason for.
Please,
readers, stop this at once. Let me help you consume news in a responsible
fashion. These are some basic rules.
Do
not start the day with news. Waking up to the news is 100% guaranteed to put
you in a bad mood. Do whatever it takes to not corrupt the first hour or so of
your waking day with news. Instead, work yourself towards it. Enjoy your
coffee, revel in breakfast and so on before you plunge into the misery of
current affairs. Choose well-rounded doses of news. That way you don’t just end
up reading 34 nearly identical articles on the latest terror attack, political
scandal or celebrity meltdown. Also, a diverse dose of news prevents you from
being stuck in one “emotional or sentimental” place. Why not try a nice daily
news bulletin on the radio or via podcast? They usually have lots of little
updates, with at least one or two things guaranteed to amuse.
Don’t
confuse news with reactions to the news. I cannot stress this enough. A new and
horrible piece of government policy is news. Amitabh Bachchan’s reaction to
this news is not news. Anupam Kher’s reaction to Amitabh Bachchan’s reaction is
even less so. And so on. There is almost no value in consuming the reactions
that random people have to news. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor’s
reaction to inflation is news. The RBI governor’s reaction to Baahubali is not.
If
you consume the news as a conscientious action of some social value, then I am
afraid the vast majority of news you consume does not help towards that cause.
It is far easier to get mired in news and analysis about unemployment in, say,
the US or Greece than in Mumbai or Kerala or wherever it is you live. Stepping
away from the narratives that dominate on TV, internet and even much of print,
may help you get closer to the issues that matter to the communities you are
part of. How? Read on.
Like
fruits and vegetables, consuming news produced locally is often more rewarding
and good for you. If you can consume a newspaper in a non-English language, you
may be surprised at how differently balanced the mix of content is. News is
more than just information. It can, if you want it, make you a better citizen.
Consume locally.
Feel
free to completely ignore aspects of current affairs that you are not
interested in. You may feel tremendous peer pressure to lap up every 6,000-word
essay on Brexit or Syriza or the Barrier Reef. You don’t have to. Choose
wisely, engage deeply, think critically. Similarly, don’t feel pressured to
have an opinion on something in the news. Really.
Read
something completely. A newspaper or magazine read from cover to cover is often
vastly more engaging, useful and horizon-broadening than scrolling down a
timeline reading exactly what 30 other people like you are reading.
It
is humanly impossible to engage deeply with every single thing in the news.
Choose one or two things you care about. And then engage deeply. Read books.
Watch documentaries. Pursuing one thing deeply will make you wiser about many
things.
Shamelessly
use deferred reading apps like Pocket to save interesting links without reading
them. Once a week or so, scan your list. Read a few things. Purge everything
else.
Most
of all, be kind and respectful to your brain. Treat it like you would treat
your home or a temple or a sacred place. Control what goes in there with
extreme prejudice. You have finite mental horsepower. Use it on things that are
worth it.
Source | Mint | 27 June 2017
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior Manager @
Knowledge Repository
Khaitan
& Co
Upcoming Lecture | ACTREC - BOSLA Annual lecture series (125th birth anniversary of father
of library science, Padmashree Dr. S. R. Ranganathan) on Saturday, 12th August 2017 at
Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC),
Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. (Theme |
'MakerSpace')
No comments:
Post a Comment