So I am sinking into a deep depression and have lost a lot of motivation off and on for the last year. You know why. Todays news is depressing, demoralizing, and creates insane amounts of division. Prop that on top of other life stressors and many of us have the making of a good ole’ fashioned mental breakdown.
Of course we are in control of how we allow the things we read and hear affect us but we are also responsible for what we allow in our ear and eye holes and I don’t know about you, but I’ve allowed too much in off and on (not consistently) for more than a year now.
I’m ready for a break during which I hope to accomplish some other goals in life including, reading my Bible more, praying more, finishing writing book two in my series, planting my garden, reading more, closing out my children’s school year, visiting some local parks, picking up drawing again, and searching for UFOs. The last one is a joke, but who knows. With all the free time I’ll have on my hands, I may just do that.
It isn’t that I like news sites or visit them because I’m really invested in what is happening in the world. It’s a way to distract myself, procrastinate, and, quite frankly, it is easy to become addicted to what I call panic or drama porn. Our thoughts are inexplicaply drawn to the negativity of life and where can we find the most negativity today but on a news site.
We can easily fall down rabbit holes, even without meaning to.
Anyhow, I digress. The point of this post is to try to hold myself accountable and to see if anyone else would like to join me in a news fast for the next month. This is not a total news fast. I am keeping myself at one hour a week which can be broken up however I like but for now I think I will allow about 8 minutes of news a day. This will include quick scans of one site and no more sinking into rabbit holes or checking Twitter (which I don’t even have an account on. What in the world am I doing? The place is a sink hole of depression and the worst society has to offer, in my opinion.) or any other social media accounts related to news.
You can keep yourself to more hours a week if you want, but I am curious to see if less news will make some of us who are susceptible to all the different messages overwhelming our brains feel less anxious. Join me if you like, cheer me on, or just ignore me. I’m okay either way but I hope by posting here I will feel guilty if I allow myself to be sucked into a media/news-induced hysteria. Let’s see how it goes. I’ll post some updates later in the month and in June. I’ll see if I utterly failed or at least had a little success.
Boondock Ramblings 
Great idea! I’ve been doing good about not watching/listening to the news mainly because I got tired of the trash talk and bias attitudes.
Hope your fast is going well!!!
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It is! I really don’t check the news for more than a few minutes most days. I checked a little more one day last week with what was going on in Israel.
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My mom mentioned that too and that was the only way I knew about it, she didn’t elaborate much so I’m still in the dark about it 🤷♀️😬
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I have been taking the time off the news for some time now, my brain and heart can’t take it
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I don’t think any of ours can. God bless you and stay right off there!
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I’ve been doing this since the 2016 election cycle, when some of my close friends totally lost their minds about politics and started behaving in truly hateful ways. Even online homeschooling groups started to get infiltrated by sockpuppets trying to stir up culture wars fights. I started to realize the toll a lot of it was taking on me psychologically, even just in passing, and it is all so pointless. I’d be on edge or distracted talking to my family for no good reason and they don’t deserve that. A bright, beautiful morning turned into abstract anger. Even folks I tended to agree with were starting to say some extreme things. I mean, someone will say some non-controversial, normal thing and you scroll down to look at the replies and they are just vile.
I now spend as much time outside as is humanly possible. We still technically have cable because it was part of our internet bundle, but we didn’t even get cable boxes set up. We stream old movies and cooking and gardening shows. We read out loud as a family. With the longer days we go out hiking in the wetlands or to the beach. We hang out in the front yard playing basketball and talking to our neighbors. We are shopping for a boat. After a while, it doesn’t even occur to you to look at your phone.
I feel like so many people are deciding to cut social media out, and I think that is promising. I wish these platforms had never been invented.
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I agree with you about social media and everything else you have written here. Especially this: “A bright, beautiful morning turned into abstract anger. Even folks I tended to agree with were starting to say some extreme things.” Yes. That is how I feel and you wrote it perfectly. That abstract anger because I was really angry at the state of the world and how everyone seemed to hate everyone else and how politicians and the media were loving that. And people who I agree with going way over the line? Yeah. That’s especially hard when they are family or friends and the thing is, I believe it is their submersion in the anger and angst that leads them to say these off-the-wall things. I believe this because the more emersed I was in it, the crazier my thoughts were about it and I didn’t always sound real logical when I was upset with an issue and tried to comment about it. My brain was just too overwhelmed with anger and the media loves when that happens to us because then we will just keep that cycle of anger going – watching, getting angry, yelling, watching more…ad nasueum.
And yes, when you start doing other things away from social media and news and digital devices, you really do forget to even look at your phone. It feeeels so good when that happens.
Social media can offer some positive aspects – meeting great people, sharing encouraging words, sharing our talents, but sometimes I really question if the good outweighs the bad. And maybe it does as long as we let it. It’s just getting harder to keep the bad at bay.
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I left FB/ Twitter/ IG several years ago because the drama was distressing and depressing me. After the most recent election I stopped reading the news for the same reasons. My responses were affecting my kids and not in a good way. Home life has definitely been happier and simpler, at least for me mentally and spiritually. I highly recommend and encourage what you’re doing! Go you!
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My responses were also affecting my kids. This post may make it sound like I have been addicted recently and I haven’t really been as bad as I was around the election and much of last year, thankfully, but I really want to cut back even further. When I do this, I feel calmer and I also accomplish more. I also stop looking at other people suspiciously and wonder if they are thinking bad things about me because the news told them to. I feel the media really wants us divided and I’m tired of being divided.
“Home life has definitely been happier and simpler, at least for me mentally and spiritually.” This is what I’ve been experiencing but I want to experience it even more so!
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Agreed. Best thing I’ve done is get rid of Facebook. Then Twitter. I’m on IG but mostly for gardening sites, a few bloggers, fellow standard poodle owners, and my kids. But I’m culling the herd! My circle has grown much smaller. I also disconnected cable. All we have now is streaming – and we’re pretty selective. I check my IG in the morning and try to leave it alone. The usage report I get on my phone was a major wake up call. I’ve deleted all games except solitaire- cuz, well, I love it. But I’m also trying to use my phone as a phone. I don’t turn on the TV until the evening. It’s been so refreshing. I don’t have my head in the sand, but I’m also no longer obsessed with 24/7 “news” feeds. I’d rather garden or read a good book. So good for you!
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It is so much more refreshing, isn’t it?! You’ve got a plan of action and that’s great. We need to reclaim our mental health as much as our physical. I had already deleted FB off my phone and then deleted the app altogether, only adding it back this week so I could join a couple of writing and reading groups. I don’t look around it at all now and I’m not even interested. I go to the groups I use and that’s it. I don’t even feel the desire to go anywhere else on the site. We have streaming as well, but we have had it for years because we were tired of watching commercials or having our children see commercials more accurately. I also don’t want my head in the sand but we weren’t made to have all that information being shoved in there either. I would start to tremble when I went down the rabbit holes, which I haven’t done very much recently, to be honest, but yet still felt I needed to cut back even more.
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Agree 100%!!!
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Twitter is a cesspool and I got off of it years ago. As far as taking a break from the news, I’ve been doing that for months and I have to say it does help with sanity! Hopefully, it helps your outlook.
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It is a scary, scary place!
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Yes it is!!
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I hope you let us know if you find any UFOs! 😂 I read headlines but don’t often go much further…
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Good idea! And I will let you know because the UFOs would explain a lot of what has been going on lately.
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Lol!
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I think it is a good idea to take time off from the news! No one needs that much up to date info, especially now. Do you feel like if the news wasn’t 24/7 and was just a morning and evening news report like it used to be, things would be different? Now it is is always blasted in our face, constantly.
And Twitter is a quagmire. I don’t go there, it is a scary place. Lol.
And you know you can always email/text me!
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The 24/7 news cycle is a huge issue, yes. And I succeeded today! I barely looked at news and it was such a nice day – except when my cat fell out of a tree. I’ll write about that later but she is still alive (if you didn’t see my story on Instagram.)
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Yay! But not yay. Oh my gosh, what happened!! I didn’t see the story! I am glad she is alive though!
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