Why I No Longer Watch The News
By: H. K.
Tags: Minimalism, Media Criticism, Politics, Pandemic Diaries, Election 2020

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

“Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.”

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, “Letters From a Stoic”

“Things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within — from our own perceptions.”

— Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”

On October 12th, 2020; I had spent my Tuesday afternoon receiving my second injection of one of the Phase 3 trial vaccines for COVID-19. My family and my closest friends could not understand why I had willingly decided to volunteer as a guinea-pig for a seemingly rushed vaccine. On Twitter, whenever news networks would tweet articles about the race for a COVID vaccine, I would see replies full of skepticism: people insisted that they would not trust a vaccine released during the Trump administration, that these vaccines were overly rushed compared to vaccines of the past, that the FDA and CDC were untrustworthy, that there was no way this vaccine could possibly be safe. The fact that several trials, such as AstraZeneca’s and Johnson & Johnson’s, were halted in September due to participants mysteriously falling ill had heightened Twitter users’ suspicions.

Yet never would I see Tweets circulating that Phase 1 and Phase 2 of these vaccines’ trials had been successful without any serious problems. I would rarely see any tweets pointing out that these vaccines were able to be developed so quickly because they used a new mRNA technology, which is able to be manufactured much more quickly than DNA vaccines from the past. Personally, after receiving the first dose of the vaccine a month prior in September, I had nothing but minor side effects. I felt totally fine. Even the process getting the second dosage of the vaccine was a breeze.

After receiving the second injection, on the bus home from the hospital I began to reflect on what had motivated me to join this study in the first place. I admitted to myself that, ironically, fear was behind my decision to take this risk. I was hoping to be one of the first people to receive the vaccine as I was terrified of catching the virus from my job and sickening my older family members. I also thought it was odd that people seemed to be more scared of receiving this vaccine than getting the actual virus, and was beginning to lament how the responses to this virus have become so politicized. Not only were people skeptical of the vaccine, but many others were even against social distancing and mask wearing — even President Trump and the people in his administration would refuse to take these basic precautions. And Trump’s favorite platform to vent his beliefs happened to also be Twitter.

As I arrived home and went straight to my bed to relax after having 10 tubes of blood drawn from my arm and receiving an injection, the first thing I did was open up my phone and check Twitter. I scrolled down my timeline: Amy Coney Barrett is about to take away our reproductive rights after being confirmed to the Supreme Court. Hurricane Delta had battered Louisiana, causing widespread floods. The USPS is still being sabotaged by Trump to prevent people from voting by mail. COVID-19 cases in New Jersey are back up to the levels they have been in early June. The FBI had foiled a plot by far-right activists to kidnap Governor Whitmer of Michigan. Amidst protests in Denver, a security guard had shot a self-described “Patriot.”

I see some of President Trump’s first tweets after he has recovered from COVID-19: tweeting about how New York and California have gone to hell, about how Illinois has nowhere to go — suggesting that people should vote for Trump. Tweeting at least 20 times about “Sleepy Joe” and “Democrat-run cities.” Hinting that there would be some form of voter fraud in the upcoming election.

“Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on. It is not just information overload; it is opinion overload.”

― Greg McKeown, “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”

I put my phone down and wonder what my sister, whom I am recently estranged from for unrelated reasons, would think of me volunteering to receive a vaccine that is not yet approved. Last time I had visited her down in Kentucky, she admitted to me that she thought the COVID-19 pandemic was some government plot to force the entire population to get vaccinations. She confided in me that she had not yet vaccinated her children out of fear that it would cause illness. Citing some posts she had read on one of her mommy groups on Facebook, she believed that all of the new 5G cell-phone towers we would drive past daily were somehow responsible for the spread of this virus. Of course this would come from Facebook, I had thought to myself, not wanting to voice aloud any disagreements as our relationship was already fraught.

Thinking about conspiracy theories and estranged family members, I am reminded of my father. In the mid 2000s, around the time before Barack Obama’s presidency, he would spend hours listening to either Rush Limbaugh’s or Glenn Beck’s radio shows while he worked at home. Limbaugh was especially horrific as he had spread around conspiracy theories questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, suggesting he was secretly a muslim and born in Kenya. These far-right commentators would also spew racist and homophobic vitriol, insisting that slavery was never really that bad, that affirmative action policies were racist against white people, and suggesting that “homosexuality” is linked to pedophilia. My father would become consumed by political discourse, constantly parroting whatever conspiracy he had heard on the radio at the dinner table. It seemed like nearly every time he wanted to talk with me, he wanted to have some kind of debate: whether it was about how he felt muslims were planning to take control of this country and institute “Sharia law”, or about how the “gay agenda” was also taking over the country, seeking to destroy the traditional family.

Even though I have not been on Facebook in years, and though I couldn’t care less about conservative talk radio, I began to question whether the forms of media I would consume also had some kind of negative effect on not only my own thoughts but on the thoughts of the people currently in my life. I definitely have witnessed my mother and step-father begin to express an unusual level of fear they had never shown before as a result of the news they have consumed this year. I think back to the August shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin by 17 year-old Kyle Rittenhouse — how came down to the kitchen to cook dinner, and my parents happened to have Tucker Carlson’s show playing on Fox News, with Carlson excusing the vigilante murder of two protestors, claiming that all the teenager was doing was upholding “law and order”. My mother, in response to the footage of these riots on television, began saying she was afraid of “looters” and “rioters” coming to our home. Never mind the fact we live in a quiet, suburban area in northeastern New Jersey full of families, mostly middle-aged and older residents; in an extremely safe town which had not had a single murder case in over 5 years.

I unlock my phone again, impulsively deciding to re-open Twitter to mindlessly scroll my timeline. As someone who had formerly been very active politically, a lot of my acquaintances in my personal life and the strangers I followed on Twitter were left-wing activists. My close friends are either left-leaning politically, sharing my support for Bernie Sanders, or simply apolitical, having no interest in keeping up with any political discourse. I realized as I scrolled — as my family had expressed fear about “the Left” becoming increasingly violent, the people I followed on Twitter expressed concerns about right-wing militia groups stirring up chaos. Just like how my family was concerned that the “Democrats” would riot in the streets after Trump had won the upcoming election, the people on my Twitter timeline were just as convinced that Trump would stir chaos in his supporters and call on the Proud Boys if Biden had become the President-elect.

“Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

― Greg Mckeown, “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”

To make things clear: I am not attempting to make a statement about whether “the Left’s” ideas are correct, or whether far-right conspiratorial views deserve any merit. Rather, I am concerned about how the type and the quantity of the media we consume affects our minds and our well-being. Being somebody who was frequently exposed to political views on both sides of the spectrum, I noticed one common denominator: the usage of fear as a tactic to reinforce one’s own beliefs, cultivating an “us vs. them” mentality. As someone who had once very strongly believed that our country was on the verge of descending into fascism and that our planet only had about 20 years left before climate change would become irreversible — I realized I was overwhelmed with anxiety. I noticed that every time I had watched the news on any station, every time I had opened the Twitter app — I felt nothing but a sense of dread that would end up taking over my mood for the rest of the day, affecting my ability to let loose and have fun, and even lowering my productivity levels. As somebody who is currently taking 5 classes while working at my part-time job Monday through Friday, who is currently in the process of converting to a different religion, and also trying to prioritize self-care and physical fitness in order to mitigate the health effects the lockdown has had on me — I simply have no room for any additional stressors in my life.

So on that Tuesday afternoon in which I was off from work, I had decided to go cold-turkey and quit the news. I unsubscribed to the daily emails I would receive to The Atlantic, even emailing their customer service to cancel my digital magazine subscription. I unfollowed quite a few Instagram profiles — those belonging to Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even “150 Reasons Trump Must Go” and any page relating to feminism. I muted Donald Trump’s Twitter, as well as unfollowing other politicians and political activists, and muting any popular pundits who were bound to be retweeted onto my timeline. I have over 70 words muted from my Twitter account — including “republican,” “democrat,” “COVID-19,” “election,” “Trump,” “SCOTUS,” “45,” “white supremacists,” “fascism,” “police,” “protests,” “voting,” and more. I deleted the Apple News app, unfollowed any political podcasts on Spotify. I told my friends to stop iMessaging and DM-ing me Donald Trump’s tweets or any news articles mentioning the COVID pandemic. Finally, I had decided that each time I would go in the kitchen, I would play calming instrumental music on the radio while facing away from the television in the living room.

Of course, attempting to stay uninformed in our ultra-connected 21st century world is just as hard as anyone would assume. Besides nearly always experiencing a level of FOMO, my friends and family continue to remind me that it is my duty as a citizen to remain informed and that it is not realistic to stick my head in the sand. Even though I know my loved ones are well-intentioned, I constantly have my boundaries pushed by people attempting to talk to me about what is going on. Finally, by attempting to be conscious of my own biases and striving to remain neutral about issues I have not researched well, my liberal friends and acquaintances would accuse me of being too sympathetic to Republicans. My family assumes I voted for Biden despite me repeatedly stating that I do not want to discuss my political preferences with them. It’s not like I’m some fence-sitter who refuses to pick a side — I just do not feel that it is a productive use of my time to complain excessively about things I cannot control to my friends, nor do I want to be put in a position where I have to defend my beliefs from my family. After all the arguments I have had with my father and my sister when I was younger, those such as whether “transsexuals” have some kind of hidden agenda to destroy American society or whether vaccines really cause autism, neither of our minds have been changed. If anything, it just made us angrier with each other.

The “good news” is that by being more intentional about the content I consume, I have had so much more free time to devote to my hobbies and passions that have nothing to do with politics. I have been running each day, while choosing to listen to audiobooks or podcasts on psychology, spirituality, and self-help. By reading books about world history, evolutionary biology, and ancient philosophies, I have actually become more informed about issues that the news seldom reports on. I have caught up on shows, preferring to watch series related to cooking, interior design, travel, and nature. I watch YouTube videos about minimalism, decluttering, and “slow living.” I have been drinking more water, finding time to meditate, even taking up journaling and using coloring books rather than tweeting and retweeting. Even my Instagram feed is now full of “aesthetic”, as I follow pages relating to world travel, restaurants, cooking, home decor, architecture, DIY crafts, tiny homes and van living, nature photography, and more.

My therapist had told me about three weeks ago that the only things I should be focusing on in my life are finishing my degree, thinking about my future career, and envisioning how I want my life to be and who I want to become. I could also continue my commitment to social justice by listening to and supporting those who are part of marginalized groups, and by treating everyone I meet with dignity and respect, both of which I can do without spending hours in front of the television or scrolling down my timeline. When I think about what is truly essential to my life, keeping up with the news and politics are nowhere in the picture.

I fully admit that with this newfound sense of bliss comes a level of ignorance. I still have no idea what the exact number of current daily cases of COVID-19 are in New Jersey, although a friend had informed me that the current number of daily cases are higher now than they have ever been. I also admit that I “cheated” and decided to follow the news during election week very closely, refreshing the New York Times election page every few hours and listening to CNN while working out. And yes — all throughout the week, until Biden was declared the victor on Saturday, I was so anxious that I could barely focus on anything else.

By the way — nobody had actually ended up rioting over the election results, despite the fear mongering on the news and social media, despite businesses in cities across the country boarding up their windows in anticipation of unrest. It is totally natural to feel some level of fear in these uncertain times we are in; I still worry about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and I am nervous that Trump would continue to refuse to accept the election results. In addition, I still cannot avoid glancing at the TV whenever I pass through the living room in my home, which is always left tuned in to a news station. Finally, my boundaries are still frequently pushed, despite having to constantly remind my family that I do not want to engage in any political discussion; my parents suspect that anyone who doesn’t love President Trump must be a so-called “liberal.” My parents especially make it a point to bring him up even during unrelated conversations, attempting to convince me that he is not as bad as the “mainstream media” makes him seem, while still not fully understanding that I do not really watch news on television anymore. I also do not read any full-length news articles online, but I still get a glimpse of the daily headlines and read snippets of current events whenever I open Twitter — my friends still insist on sharing links to news articles with me via Twitter DM or iMessage. Despite politics being nearly impossible for me to fully avoid, spending a significant amount of my leisure time reading about these issues on the news certainly wouldn’t help me feel any more at ease, nor would it change a thing. In fact, I feel better not dwelling on the specifics of what is going on.

“We never see a journalist saying to the camera, “I’m reporting live from a country where a war has not broken out” — or a city that has not been bombed, or a school that has not been shot up. As long as bad things have not vanished from the face of the earth, there will always be enough incidents to fill the news, especially when billions of smartphones turn most of the world’s population into crime reporters and war correspondents.”

― Steven Pinker, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress”

“Over the last several decades, extreme poverty, victims of war, child mortality, crime, famine, child labour, deaths in natural disasters and the number of plane crashes have all plummeted. We’re living in the richest, safest, healthiest era ever. So why don’t we realise this? It’s simple. Because the news is about the exceptional, and the more exceptional an event is — be it a terrorist attack, violent uprising, or natural disaster — the bigger its newsworthiness.”

― Rutger Bregman, “Humankind: A Hopeful History”