It’s an unfortunate fact that distractions define our modern lives. In his book Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey says, “…we encounter more distraction today than we have in the entire history of humanity.”
The technical innovations of cell phones, tablets, and laptops have all brought great benefits. Unfortunately, they have also come with the ability to constantly distract us. Push notifications, Twitter, FaceBook, email, and text messages all have no compunctions about interrupting and distracting us to gain our attention. In fact, it’s their job. They are specifically designed to do so.
The enemy of intentionality and a life well lived is distraction. Joshua Becker, Things That Matter.
The constant stream of distractions makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to focus on what matters most. It’s difficult to maintain an intentional life when our attention is constantly being diverted to things that don’t really matter.
Unfortunately, the news has often become just another distracting voice.
News Had Informational & Educational Goals When I Was Growing Up
When I was much younger, journalism had different ideals and values. It was understood and taught that the goal of news reporting was a reasonably objective presentation of the facts. Given the facts, it was the reader’s job to interpret them and determine what they meant. It was about education and thinking.
At that time, it was considered almost a civic duty to read the paper or watch the nightly news to stay informed about current events. We believed that in a democracy, voters must stay informed of what was happening.
The News Has Changed to the Point Where it is Often Now Distraction, Not Education
Our quote today states, “Most news these days is really not news at all. It is information theater. Stories are sensationalized and provided to us with as few meaningful facts as possible.” Patrick Rhone, Enough.
It’s easy for people to waste hours and hours on 24/7 news, with multiple links leading one yet further down the rabbit hole. Some are afraid of missing out (FOMO) and allow themselves to be constantly distracted by push notifications and Twitter threads.
The financial goal has overshadowed the educational goal; it’s all about hooking and keeping your attention to increase advertising revenue. You are the product, and your attention is sold to the highest bidder.
Most news is entertainment, with headlines designed to grab your attention and create emotional outrage to hook you and keep you there. Like most social media platforms, the news is specifically engineered to use your emotions to generate more profit.
No matter what side of the political spectrum it targets, it is designed to hook you and hijack your focus. In addition, some journalists believe it is legitimate to use the news as a political argument. They see their job not as doing their best to present a balanced and objective viewpoint, but as an activist influencer of a particular viewpoint. They therefore “spin” the facts and present only those viewpoints that support their particular political axe.
Even tech/productivity writers are not immune to this approach. It’s fairly obvious when every “fact” in their writing is presented in a way to tell you what you should think about the topic they are discussing. As an example, I find many recent tech news articles about Elon Musk and the Twitter acquisition as anything but objective, balanced reporting; they are largely political statements, designed to outrage and grab attention.
Characteristics of Educational News Sources
- News that has an objective, unbiased viewpoint and reporting of the facts. I understand that we all have bias, and nothing is 100% objective. We all interpret “the facts” through the lens of our personal beliefs and experiences.
However, there is real value in a reporter who recognizes their limitations and bias and strives to present a balanced and objective view in their reporting. In contrast, a reporter who sees their job as primarily a manipulator of emotions or a political activist has little educational value in my estimation. I want a reporter who respects my ability to think for myself. I don’t want “facts” presented with a prepackaged interpretation. - News that presents complexity and context. News designed to hook your attention and manipulate your emotions doesn’t typically provide any complexity or context. There’s no attempt to provide different points of view or the context in which something happened; it’s all simple sensational statements designed to grab your attention, manipulate your emotions, and make you feel outraged. Statements are taken out of context, events are disconnected from their context.
I value news sources that provide complexity and balance. It’s my experience that there often is “more than one side to any story.” I find it helpful to know what those other sides are before jumping to emotional outrage when only one story has been presented, and that story was specifically engineered to manipulate me. - News is presented in a non-sensational way. Sensational headlines and statements in a news article are sure signs that the goal of the article is to grab your attention and manipulate your emotions. Non-sensational headlines indicate to me that a news article is more interested in education than manipulation.
One Option: Cut Yourself Off From the News
I stopped regularly watching the news about 25 years ago. I got tired of a steady stream of negative news. It made me feel negative and depressed. It gave me an unrealistic, unbalanced and largely negative view of my community and the world.
Cutting myself off from the news got me out of the constant stream of sensationalized and negative information. I think it helped me to gain a more positive and balanced view of life.
I found that when major events happened, I’d find out about them from friends, conversations, and snippets on the internet. If there was something I wanted to find out more about, I’d research it and look at select news sources. But I was in control, and only spent as much time doing so as I wished. Rather than a distraction, it was a learning activity.
Overall, I think I’ve been much better off not religiously (or obsessively) following the news. It’s helped me use the news as education, and not allow it to become a distraction.
If you feel like you just can’t completely unplug, I’d suggest that you do an inventory of where and how you get your news. Turn off push news notifications, a major source of distraction.
Stay away from Twitter and FaceBook as much as possible. Turn off the news channel on the TV when you’re not specifically watching a news program. Give yourself a time limit when browsing social media or news sites. Be aware when you read a news article that is trying to manipulate your emotions or influence your beliefs, and stop reading.
Just say no!