This link should work to get past the paywall.
6 Likes
7. Honor your limits without losing sight of the problems and the pain.
I think this one is the most important (for me). Itâs ok to walk away from the news, turn it off, only digest in doses even if Iâm spending online time on Instagram, CC or whatever. Scroll time should act to lift you up sometimes - not just bring you down. It doesnât mean I donât care, it just means my mind space can only digest so much at a time or it will be counterproductive to all my life.
All 3 of my kids struggle a bit with this âspiralingâ. All three have HIGH degrees of empathy. One perhaps to a fault - she just FEELS so strong. They all have their own strategies - which they have to remind themselves of - to know when to pull back from digesting too much.
10 Likes
Remember that ânewsâ is a business. They highlight (and often hype) those stories they think will make you tune in or read their paper. As such, every horrifying story or hyperbolic political narrative is the focus. We rarely hear about the nice things that happen and they do happen.
That the NY Times is giving advice on this is akin to the arsonist showing up to help put out the fire.
16 Likes
I am a regular NY Times reader and subscriber and I find your accusation (mostly) not true.
14 Likes
The NY Times has been reporting stories since 1851 as have many media outlets. Surely they did and DO report on plenty of ânice thingsâ - the NY TImes Cooking section for instance puts plenty of ânice thingsâ on my dinner table every week.
But feel good stories are read, enjoyed and we move on - they often donât personally effect us. We appreciate them, maybe share them with a friend or family member and itâs a quick lift in our day. A crisis however - especially those of the nature that are affecting our daily lives - stay with us. Affect us. Weigh on us. And for some people, truly put them in a state of some level of despair.
10 Likes
I have really appreciated the thoughtful and extremely useful articles in the âWellâ section where this article was published, especially since Covid. I am a psychotherapist in a community mental health clinic in Brooklyn and I have shared this article and many others with clients.
I never opened the articles the author cited for exactly the reasons she said. And since 2016 I have rationed my news-reading time, on Facebook as well as the Washington Post, to which I also subscribe. The only TV news I watch is the PBS Newshour and I listen to NPR from time to time.
3 Likes
I got tired of political party leaning of every newspaper long time ago. Itâs very difficult to form an unbiased opinion of what is actually happening. News delivery is a business after all. To stay informed I mostly read SmartNews.
8 Likes
Havenât watched the news in a long, long time. My way to keep updated is to read multiple newspapers (some in foreign languages)and magazines and very different points of view. This helps my brain sort out the crazy biases and near propaganda. Sometimes I just laugh about it. I have read the craziest stuff in the âmost respectableâ papers. LOL.
I mentally also circle weasel words. In 7th grade, we had a teacher who had us circle weasel words in history class to show how an author was trying to sway someone or to put in a single word to make something appear true but on a closer read, you realize it is unconfirmed, etc. I also took a great class in college. Part of it was reading graphs for accuracy. Look at the X and Y access, are the breaks normal. Are like things being compared. Is the graph set up to show the argument in a biased way. Happens about 60% of the time. Maybe more.
I also set my browser to private so I donât get more news articles based on what I have previously read. This is such a terrible thing news sources do. People then believe that everyone is doing X, or this Y is happening everywhere. But itâs only because the browser is serving you news based on your reading behaviors.
6 Likes
I donât watch the news ever; I read several newspapers and monitor whatâs trending on Twitter etc to see if Iâm missing something (with critical thinking of what makes sense and what is garbage). I always find the âall news is biasedâ somewhat misleading because you can evaluate evidence, or lack of, to see what is factual. The NYT isnât always on point, but overall, itâs much more transparent than most news sources and clearly evidenced based, in news if not always in op-eds and other opinion pieces. But as I said, Iâll read that, WaPo, The Guardian, and other news sources to counter omissions and biases as much as possible.
I feel itâs my obligation to monitor whatâs going on, though mindful of taking care of myself, because as a citizen, i have an obligation to fight for my kidsâ and grandkidsâ futures (otherwise I fall into deep despair about them, between climate change, threats to democracy, rights revoked, and other existential threats.)
5 Likes
I spend a lot of time in the gym and/or outside walking, running, hiking and/or biking. Those activites keep my sanity.
Otherwise, the news would depress me. 
5 Likes
@sushiritto - I agree. Running.walking and yoga help hold me together.
4 Likes
Couldnât agree more with that. Itâs the constant bombardment of extreme rhetoric employed by virtually all media outlets, politicians, etc., that we need to recognize. I think thatâs whatâs creating the feelings of despair. We are not enemies just because we see different sides of an issue.
5 Likes
Yeah, I just wish people would realize that.
7 Likes
With all due respect, when things are, as I see it, existential threats, to me and to my kids/grandkids, I think itâs reductive to consider it as âdifferent sides of an issue.â
9 Likes
I think youâve misinterpreted my post. I was not suggesting debate if you or your family is in physical danger. My statement was about civil discourse on issues where people disagree.
Sorry for the digression Mods.
3 Likes
The popular TV ânewsâ channels have mostly become opinion (propaganda) zones, rather than factually reported news.
The accessibility of newspapers across the web has increased access to news, but it has also blurred the line between the news and opinions that, in print newspapers, were in specifically delineated sections. Yes, they may put âopinionâ on the web page with an opinion, but that is easier to miss than when the opinions were in a specific opinion section of the print edition.
3 Likes
Stop âdoom scrollingâ.
2 Likes
One of the issues I had was with repetition of negative or âhigh impactâ stories. I subscribe to both the Post and the Times, but I was also following them on FB and Twitter. I might see the same story 4 times as a result, so I stopped following papers on my social media. That definitely helped - plus, I wasnât reading all the comments that contributed even more angst. I subscribe to âpositiveâ newsletters, like âWellâ and âRunningâ - I can always count on something affirming or helpful that way. I also got a subscription to Apple News which offers a mix of different perspectives, plus other, âlighterâ reading material. Thatâs also helped quite a bit. I want to stay informed but I also want to keep things in perspective. Perhaps Iâm not as informed on every issue, but Iâm informed on the issues that matter most to me.
2 Likes
I try hard to strike a balance between staying aware and informed but as far as the bulk of my emotional energy, I follow the advice in Candide and cultivate my garden (literally and figuratively).
Outrage-inducing stories get more clicks (or TV ratings). Because opinions are less constrained by actual facts, it is easier to use an opinion to generate outrage and therefore clicks than it is to use factually reported news. So it is no surprise that outrage-inducing opinions dominate the ânewsâ, even though they have a corrosive effect of stoking a (currently mostly non-violent) civil war.
1 Like