Asklemmy

Heavily filter what you consume. Following all news is not the morally correct thing to do, and you can cut back on it.

I'm fighting against this by staying off all social media other than Lemmy. All my news comes from a small number of curated sources, and only in RSS feeds (so I get them in time order rather than bullshit news site headlines prioritisation). I use a lot of keyword filters on Lemmy and in my RSS news (Covid, Trump, Biden, most American news, anything that is meaningless to me is blocked before it can show up on my screen).

TLDR news is a particularly good YouTube channel. They have really well presented news and pick out a few important events to report on. I find that's more than enough for me for news consumption.

One thing I do — and it sounds like you may have tried a version of this — is take media breaks (social media included). Go camping, read fiction, play video games or whatever floats your boat. You’ll almost always find that nothing major has changed and you were just dwelling on things beyond your control.

I’m not saying stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong. I’m more saying you can keep just as informed without wallowing in the news slop.

This may have missed the point of your asking, but I wrote it so I'm posting it lol my apologies if it's not what your looking for:

I'm gonna advise a thought on what I had to do. I love being informed. But I reached such a level of depression and anxiety of the future that I had to do something.

So I stopped. I told myself it doesn't have to be forever, just a break. Took about 2 weeks of much less news consumption, forced myself to be brain-dead as much as possible. It led to a few conclusions:

The world turns. No matter what you do, ppl do insane shit. Taking a break for you doesn't mean stupid shit stops happening, but it makes it less the center of your world. You don't have to own it.

Life is about a lot more than what's going on in the news cycle. I have friends who never look at a newspaper, and they're far happier than I am overall. Just a thought.

The kicker - I still knew what was going on. The media milks a big story over days and weeks, so you can easily come back to your favorite website and pick it up quickly. Haven't missed anything that I could have changed regardless haha.

A great comment I saw a while back: put down the phone for a few days, and you realize it's still 2005 outside. The world is boring, but blessedly so. For your health, let it be 2005 for a bit.

Now, I just read the headlines unless something really grabs my attn. Reading the news makes many problems that aren't yours a you problem. Overall, I've realised it's the little things that make life better. Do the little stuff - help in your community, give the homeless guy a fiver, call your mom, ask the cashier how her day is (and genuinely care about her answer). If you're up for it, maybe then undertake some of the actions other ppl are suggesting about political action, volunteering, etc.

You can't pour from an empty cup, my friend. Take care of you first and the world becomes a little better ☺️

Not for everyone but political activism is a good outlet, be it protests or volunteering to help the election campaign of the opposition when it comes round again. Make sure everyone you know lays the blame in the correct place when shit inevitably hits the fan.

Other than that, get off corporate social media, rage bait is the most effective content for driving interaction, corporate social media algorithms are designed to maximise interaction. You will always be shown the worst of everything on social media.

Similarly identify where your news is coming from and if it's coming from somewhere with a tendency to sensationalise. Cut anything like that out too.

It's important to be informed yes, but it's not essential to be aware of absolutely everything for most people, and if that's better for your mental health, you should prioritise reduction in consumption.

It's tough. Just keeping up with "trying" to be aware is a full-time stressful job (there's literally only so much time in a day to absorb information, some have less/more). That would be hard even if everything was awesome news all the time in a world so connected.

It helps to realize that it's always been this way, the world is a busy busy place. Everything going on, all the time, never stopping. It doesn't pause, you sleep and the world continues on without you. It's overwhelming, but kinda cool at the same time.

So for me, I take a step back with "mindfulness". It's just a word, but what you're going for is a feeling. For instance, if you've been on here a long time, turn off your screen for a minute and look at your surroundings. Don't let your mind wander back to the screen. Literally give your mind a second to realize you are just existing in a small space. Look at your wall and pick out a detail you haven't seen before, or a tree (anything to let your mind think about something else).

Take some deep breaths or stretch or feel your toes, there's lots of different techniques people use. But, you're going for the disconnected feeling. If you're breathing and still thinking about what's online you gotta refocus to your immediate area. That argument or event is not in your vicinity. You are not helping by stressing out over it. Don't be a fire-fighter who's in a firehouse worried about all the houses catching on fire.

You can compensate your mind's news addiction, by realizing you are better prepared to interact and absorb information online if you're more stable. At some point your cognitive mind is tapped out but you're still scrolling from habit, or you're less likely to get your point across with proper communication if you're not in your best mindset.

By just giving your mind a little room to breathe you'll start figuring out what you want to do with that time. Local organization, hobbies, chores, your mind will try to fill that void with something and you'll be able to hopefully choose something that helps your current overwhelming feeling. Fire-fighters check equipment, play games, shoot the shit, etc. They're still extremely helpful when the time comes.

From recent events I believe online discourse is an important part of society interaction. Look at the media attention over the CEO, instead of just demonizing him, they had to spend time trying to fight all the online support and looked like fools during it.

Just go to a poor country like Peru. You will start to appreciate what you have.

Easy, I was depressed and cynical before the election

I get my news from here. If it is really important it will bleed into the periphery to places like this. My physical disability with social isolation makes this a best self health situation. The news is not real news any more, it does nothing to inform. It was changed to "news as entertainment" long ago.