Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)
I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC &#x2F; Al Jazeera &#x2F; Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there&#x27;s usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn&#x27;t grow into &quot;expert analysis&quot; or impact my feelings much. Here&#x27;s another thing I noticed: how manipulated &#x2F; manipulative it is. And not just news and I don&#x27;t just mean politically - I know everyone thinks that news that doesn&#x27;t align with their politics is just brainwashing. Broadcast TV is just generally awful now IMO.<p>We went quite a few years without ever seeing cable. My kids would stream shows and consume other media on-demand, but any advertising was minimal and fairly non-intrusive. And then they were watching a kids show at a hotel once and the ads came on and the effect it had on them was crazy. They suddenly desperately needed all the toys in the commercials and were repeating catch phrases from ads after only seeing them a couple of times. The contrast in their behavior was insane. And they HAD to keep watching it like I hadn&#x27;t seen before. I spent a week off-grid with my parents a while back and it was great. We came home and my Mom put on the news suddenly everything was terrible and she was angry, but she had to keep watching.<p>Just awful for mental health if you can&#x27;t separate yourself from it.