News Keeps You Informed, Right?
When I was a little tike, my dad thought the same thing, and he introduced me to the daily newspaper. I began with the comics (minus Doonesbury because I didn’t understand the humor) and the front page. Soon I was devouring the entire first section. By the time I finished high school, my daily habit included reading most of the daily newspaper, and I believed anyone not informed on the news was an ignoramus.
Fast forward to the present day and I have since given up the news completely. Funny how things have changed.
News Makes You Negative
A few months ago, I was having a breakfast with my friend Thomas and his new girlfriend Jane. It was an awkward meal because Jane had a pretty strong personality, complained quite a bit about the restaurant, and continuously chose to talk about the news for conversation. Many of her sentences resembled in one form or another: “Did you hear about …“, “It’s so awful“, “I can’t believe…“.
Out of curiosity, I asked her, “Do you read the news often?”
Her reply was, “Yes, I love the news. It’s an addiction. Every morning I read all The Toronto Star, The National Post, and The Globe and Mail. I like to keep up to date on current events.”
Constant news exposure can invade your subconscious, resulting in you complaining more, becoming more pessimistic, and being difficult to satisfy. If your news source is a biased publications, then you’ll easily become more opinionated on a subject, feel the need to be right (and others wrong) about your views, reinforce certain beliefs, and swallow points of views verbatim, no questions asked. Seriously, when is the last time any of us have read an Afghani or Iraqi newspaper?








