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Comment by jen729w | Hacker News Reader

I'm living (temporarily) with someone who obsessively watches the news on TV. And not the good news. The trashy, commercial-channel news.

'Oh who cares about this rubbish!', they'll say to the screen. Or 'who cares about these people, why do we need to see this?', or 'why do we give these people attention?'.

As someone who identifies as an optimist – and who hasn't watched any form of TV news in decades – I find it interesting.

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And merely suggesting watching less trashy news brings cries of "Quit watching? Inconceivable!"

As an optimist that likewise doesn't watch the news. it is interesting the many traps of things of false worthiness people get caught up in.

It's easy to feel like you have a responsibility to be informed, and as a result you have to be drinking from the fire hose all the time. I noticed myself getting into that habit and that it was dragging me down to places I didn't want to be. After spending some time thinking about it I came to the conclusion that there are very very very few things that happen in this world that would change for the worse if I didn't find out about it until a week later. As a result there's no need to be plugged in 24/7. I can get updates on things once or so a week and the world will go on exactly as it would have if I was plugged in every day, but my mental health will be much better. Bonus is that I don't have to wade through the fog of "breaking news", I can get a more accurate and complete picture the first time rather than drips and drabs over a week.

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