Giving up reading news will make us happier
Look, I think this is great and all, but I&#x27;m pretty skeptical of this chant, &quot;If the news bothers you so much because of what you&#x27;re reading, just stop reading. It&#x27;s not like you can change it.&quot;<p>Obviously, events that already happened can&#x27;t be changed. But a lot of what upsets people so much is about legal interpretation and political policy. These things <i>are</i> changeable, and direct (and&#x2F;or collective) action can change them.<p>When you&#x27;re in a position where by default things go your way (dominant gender, dominant sexual orientation, dominant phenotype&#x2F;race in local community) then yeah, you can just disengage and suspect that things are ticking over nicely for you. That&#x27;s not the case for people outside this happy intersection. It certainly reads to me, as someone out of one of those bounds like you&#x27;re telling me to disengage while people actively trying to shape law to marginalize me certainly won&#x27;t.<p>Further, resistance to propaganda and misinformation is not an attribute of mentality. It&#x27;s a combination of learned skills and _context_. By yielding all current contextual information, you are severely damaging your ability to process current events. This is in sharp contrast to the arguments put forth here and in the article that often lament the lack of skills (e.g., statistical thinking) that you can both learn and maintain in isolation.<p>I agree that controlling your media consumption is important and some folks (including myself) sometimes go off on media benders, getting very stressed. But the second assumption (that it&#x27;s pointless) is wrong. My anger and outrage has  helped me aid numerous political campaigns and individuals with money, time and emotional support.