Reading news only creates the illusion of useful activity. In fact, it is an absolutely useless and occasionally harmful activity. Why should you remove your news application from the smartphone and the news site bookmark from your browser? Read the information below.
Saving time is not the only reason to abandon reading news.
News, especially in the format to which we are accustomed to, not only helps to develop our brain and memory. On the contrary, it contributes to the development of shallow thinking, provokes multitasking and buries a person under tons of unnecessary information.
But let’s analyze why you should stop reading news in the mornings, evenings and at any time.
News grabs your attention
News ceased to be a simple message about what is happening – it has become a source of profit. Therefore, many news programs, channels, websites and applications are fighting for the attention of the consumer.
Most of the news items will not cause any reaction in you, if they are reported without sensations and catchy expressions. Therefore, the people telling you about the news embellish the information, substitute the concepts, and make a sensation out of ordinary events.
Moreover, the news does not let you go. After reading a sensation, which actually turns out to be empty of content, you look for the following related news item. This one should be a sensation again, and so you click to read it. As a result, you are strongly involved and spend your time reading useless information, which is presented in a way that makes it almost impossible to abandon reading it.
You will not miss really important news
You are wasting your time, and you still do not get anything in return. After all, most of the news really does not concern you and is not reflected in your work, standards of living, or relationships.
If the news that you are reading, is not directly related to your profession or even the country in which you live, it will not be useful to you with great probability. Even if you need to start a conversation with a stranger in a bar or break an awkward pause in the conversation.
It may seem that, ignoring the news resources, you fall out of the life of society. That’s not true.
Firstly, most of the news items deal with the events from distant past or the ones that have not happened yet, but are “anticipated greatly”.
Secondly, you will learn really serious and important news about dramatic changes in the world from other people: your friends and family will tell you; you will see a parody in a ridiculous public; you will read it at the entrance to your apartment building, or will hear it after the sound of sirens in the street.
News affects the brain badly and spoils the mood.
Initially, our brain automatically believes in everything that is said and written by other people. Somewhat later, you reinterpret the information and possibly hesitate about what is written. But there is one important point – waste of energy.
Due to the centuries-proven survival mechanism, the brain does not like to waste energy. Doubt and reflection are both costly affairs.
While surfing the news in a relaxed way, you do not even think about whether it’s the truth or the newsmen’s fiction designed to attract attention.
You automatically believe everything you read and jump from one short news to another. The brain gets used to superficial thinking, and you find it more and more difficult to focus on serious things and go deeper into a particular theme.
The abundance of fast information and catchy content changes the way of thinking, so that people are less and less able to concentrate. It does not sound very appealing, does it?
Moreover, news harms your emotional realm, bringing pointless disappointment about the things you cannot change. Our life is full of anxiety and stress; is it worth adding more negative into it, when you are not concerned with it?
You are not refreshing knowledge – you lose time
Only a very small percentage of news brings useful information to people, other articles are needed purely for entertainment. This is light knowledge that is forgotten almost immediately after reading and does not make any impression on you.
Reading entertaining fast food news distracts you from really important things, but it is as difficult to give up as the habit of snacking in a fast food outlet. When you are used to browsing news sources with a simple presentation of information, you will have to force yourself to read at least fiction literature rather than professional sources.
But when you still decide to take this step and remove everything that is connected with “news consumerism” from your life, you will feel the benefits very soon: change the thinking itself and save more time for really useful things.
