Want to stay sane? Try switching off your news alerts
As much as we need to stay informed, that relentless ping of potential horrors can’t be good for us
How are you not going mad?” is a thing I’ve heard recently. “How are you not talking about this all the time, how are you merrily, some say stupidly, going about your business as if the world did not feel like a coin in an arcade 2p machine, being pushed slowly but definitely off the edge and tasting of blood?” My answer: I’ve turned off breaking news alerts. More than that, I’ve dramatically limited the news I read. How am I not going mad? This is how I’m not going mad.
Perhaps turning away from the news is a silly and job-endangering thing to admit to as somebody employed by a news organisation. Perhaps it’s unattractive or exposing, as somebody living in a time when news is currency and ignorance is fatal. But I have seen the red-eyed horror of people immersed, I have felt the heat of anxiety, that burning shiver of the spine, and I’ve lain awake beside scrolling thumbs that dig deeper and deeper into algorithms that know us better than our own mothers, and are just as likely to shape who we become. Continue reading…
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