TJ Walker (host of The Habit Influencer) discusses Mark Manson’s blog post "Why You Should Quit the News," summarizing Manson's five main arguments against regular news consumption: (1) repeated exposure to traumatic events can produce PTSD-like symptoms; (2) agenda-setting causes disproportionate perception of importance (example: Monica Lewinsky); (3) cultivation theory—heavy news viewers overestimate crime/violence and grow distrustful of others; (4) misinformation and partisan propaganda can leave viewers worse informed than non-viewers; and (5) news consumption increases stress, pessimism, and generalized anxiety. Walker notes he stopped watching cable news and recommends Mark Manson’s long-form essays (markmanson.net).
Chapters
Why you should quit the news this is a blog post by Mark Manson. Many of you may be familiar with his name. He's written a number of New York Times best selling books. He is a blogger with millions of followers and he had an intriguing post in the last couple of days and that's the title of it. Why you should quit the news. If you're interested in the link, if you in the show notes, if you don't see it, just type wherever you are and we'll be happy to repost that link. But here's some of his main reasons for why he believes it's harmful to the individual and it is in fact a bad habit to spend time consuming news. Most people in the past would say, well it's a good thing to be well informed. Democracies need a well informed citizenry. Unfortunately a lot of problems with that now because oftentimes the more news you read, the less informed you have, the more likely you are to be ill informed and be running around with a bunch of false notions in your brain and be ignorant frankly. So here are some of the things he talks about. Recurring trauma studies find that many people who view catastrophic events, terrorist attacks, mass shootings, natural disasters repeatedly over and again on TV can develop PTSD like symptoms even though they had no direct relationship with the catastrophe. I'm here in New YORK Certainly after 9 11, so many people saw so many images on TV, they weren't outside that day and they were a safe distance, the twin towers going down that there is a school of thought. Many of them did get this PTSD like syndromes from watching the trauma again and again and again. Number two, agenda setting. When the news media becomes obsessed with a topic and shows it repeatedly, people begin to believe the topic is important, whether it actually is or not. And then he gives as an example, hello Monica Lewinsky. Similarly, negative news coverage causes people to overestimate problems, believing they're far more widespread than they actually are. What's worse, this seems to be only true for negative news. Positive news does not cause the same biases in our thinking. That's absolutely true. True. In the last 30, 40 years in the United States, the country I'm most familiar with, the rates of violent crime has dropped almost every year. I mean it's almost just a straight downward line. And yet news coverage of crime has gone up because when I was a kid there was one local newscast on each network affiliate. So you had three stations doing local news for basically a half an hour in the evening and you had to do Weather and sports and commercials. So negative news had at most about 10 minutes and then you had the national news for 22 minutes. So you were watching at most a half an hour of news about stuff that wasn't weather and sports. And that's if you were a news junkie. Well, nowadays, 24 hour cable networks, international ones, national ones, some cities like New York city, there are 24 hour news channels just for the city and obviously websites, blogs. So what's happened here in the United States is people believe crime is higher than ever before. I mean, I have people my age, younger than my age, say, oh yeah, when we were kids we ran around, it was safer times. But you can't possibly let your kid ever be unattended outside your house for five minutes because the times we live in, what are you talking about? It's never been safer than it is right now in the United States in the last 60 years. And yet this is, as Mark points out, a very, very valid problem of if you just keep harping on a subject, people believe it has outsized importance and is getting worse, even if it's getting better. Number three on his list, Cultivation theory Studies report that people who watch more news tend to over. And this relates to number two, overestimate the amount of crime and violence that happens in the real world. And here's where it leads. They are generally distrusting their fellow citizens, more often becoming paranoid and everyone is out to get them. I definitely see that. And citizens in my own community this idea that it would be crazy to let your kids walk down the street and go play in a park by themselves. Because of this Cultivation theory issue number four, he points out misinformation and propaganda. To me this is far and away the biggest problem of all. People who watch partisan cable news in the United States are actually worse informed than than someone who watches no news. Large swaths of the news industry are actively misinforming people. That is 100% true. I think there's always been a partisan news ever since the beginnings of the news media. And when you look at the first newspapers here in the United States hundreds of years ago, they were run by political parties, they were actively giving partisan news. But now there's something completely different. The power of TV and primetime host who can just push a narrative that is completely. Not cherry picking facts, just making up facts, just saying things that are factually untrue is a big, big problem and is one reason why Mark Manson is advocating to his readers tune out completely. Now when it comes to cable news, I made a decision three years ago. I'm not going to watch any cable TV news. And you know what? I have not regretted it for one second. Issue number five from stress and anxiety. News consumption harms our mental health. Consuming news generates a greater sense of pessimism about not just the world but your own life. It also increases stress and symptoms of generalized anxiety. It's quite a provocative read and like most of Mark's writings, it's quite lengthy. It's tens of thousands of words. So when he writes he's not posting every five minutes the way some bloggers do, he really goes deep. And to me this is what's fascinating about the new media world. There's the perception and there's the reality. The perception is everything's got to be quick, short sound bites, TikTok length. The reality is there's a huge range, there's a giant spectrum and if you're interesting and provocative, it doesn't matter how long or short you are, you can find an audience. Mark Manson has put together quite a career for himself based on what, what I see. Millions of viewers, huge audience, best selling books and he doesn't worry about oh, I've got to get this in in 500 words. Oh, I have to post every five minutes. No, he takes as much time as he wants and he writes major, major in depth pieces. So he is one of the personal development experts I would recommend to you if you're looking for more information and his website is just markmanson.net markmanson.net I believe I posted it in the show notes for you as well but you can take a look at that. He's got some. He's great at using images which I should be better at. Here's an image he has talking about how lacking in nutrition so much news is. He likens it to, to a bacon cheeseburger with two donuts for buns. It's a great analogy but he actually shows a picture of a bacon cheeseburger where the buns are donuts to show what he thinks of news and I think that's.
