After the latest round of shootings earlier this month, I had a moment of nausea that led me to think it might be a good time for a news hiatus. The weather was gorgeous — high summer in Vermont — and an array of family were due to visit. So rather than read depressing headlines all summer, I decided to take a couple weeks off from the news. Maybe, I thought, it will make me happier and less anxious if I just don’t hear any of it.
In the process of undergoing this experiment, I learned a couple unexpected things. First, that daily life, even without news, has plenty of stressors all on its own, and secondly, that some news will get out. Oh, and a third thing, that your friends will eventually find you boring and run out of things to say when you’re around.
To the first revelation, that daily life can be stressful: Duh! Yes, I encountered various difficulties in work and life, and yes, they did stress me out. It was while fretting about one such tension-filled incident that I came to the realization that news, upsetting though it may be, provides a distraction from the more immediate worries in our lives. The real world is still the more real. News that is not happening to us directly takes on the qualities of entertainment — exotic, exciting, and everchanging.
On the other hand, not having news as a diversion caused me to think about life on a more macro level, giving me insights I might not have had if I’d stayed caught up in the minutiae of the day to day. So there’s that.
I only heard one news story during my two week sabbatical, and that was partially my fault — I read an email that I knew from the title probably contained news but I clicked on it anyway… It was, of course, the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide” story. I resisted the urge to learn more but just that one bit of information was plenty to chew on. (Did he jump or was he pushed? As if we had to ask…)
The last bit of insight I gained from my news break was that news is necessary fodder for conversation. It’s social glue, in a way, giving us all common topics to discuss and deplore, or just laugh about. Good or bad, without it, entire rooms of adults can be reduced to silence as I discovered at a recent social gathering among normally voluble friends. As we finished our meal, an unusal quietude descended upon us, as we all sat there sat there wracking our brains for something to say that wasn’t news related.
My two weeks ended, a smidge prematurely, on the evening of the 14th day. Family caught me up quickly and there was little in their reports to surprise me. A high profile death, a stock market mini-crash, a plethora of mass shootings — all terrible, all noteworthy, but nothing we don’t read about all the time. This stuff just happens now. It is, alas, the new normal.
There was, however, one news item, which came out the day before my news isolation began, that led to a more subtle realization. The story pertained to the DNC case against Trump, the Russians, and Wikileaks, which, amazingly, the DNC lost. It was such a blockbuster ruling, I was sure it would be discussed for weeks to come. I was wrong. By dismissing the DNC’s case and affirming the first amendment rights of news organizations, the judge failed to confirm the dominant narrative, and so the press chose to either bury the story or not report it at all. The lesson here is simple — you can read all the news you want, but chances are, you still won’t know what’s really going on.
So that’s the scoop on no news — cutting it out might relax you for a while but it won’t eliminate the routine problems of life, which bubble up no matter what. As for the official news of the day, missing a week or two won’t kill you — it will all still be there whenever you decide to rejoin the human race and tune in.
Living With Someone Going News-Free
This is the second time Lise has done this, and it is always a fun experiment.
The ground rules are simple – I can’t share news with her unless there is imminent danger to southern Vermont. If California falls into the ocean, or Chicago burns to the ground, I can’t tell her. Only if a missile is heading our way do I have permission to let her know.
As the week gets underway, I take notes. I jot down headline and tidbits to remember to tell her when the experiment is over. One thing I’ve learned is it is very hard to explain the news of a week ago. (Try it yourself – what happened last Tuesday? How about the Thursday before that? Can you remember?) Notes help.
There are days that I want to talk about the news, but can’t. When documents about Epstein’s previous case came out the day before he was found dead, I dove in, read a bunch, and had a lot to say. But I stayed quiet. When he was found dead the next morning, I REALLY wanted to talk about it but kept quiet.
There is news that sounds bad then gets better the next day. Trump says crazy thing! Stock market tumbles! Trump reverse himself! Stock market recovers!
Most of the time, Lise was missing nothing. Days of headlines and stories could be explained in a sentence a week later. There was another shooting – in El Paso. Toni Morrison died. The amount of extra free time she gained during those two weeks, not wasting time scouring news sites, was substantial. And the health benefits of being blissfully unaware were obvious.
I could see, when she learned of Epstein’s death, that the story then took over for a day and it caused distractions. The “pure living” of being news free was interrupted. She was thinking about and talking about a news story rather than relaxing, working in the garden, or doing some other personal project. The story occupied brain space that was otherwise free to roam. One story slowed her. (She also learned one other story that week – the suicide of David Berman was announced on a music site she was visiting.)
It was also a bit odd, too, because she didn’t know about the day prior to Epstein’s death, nor what happened in the immediate days following, so she would speculate about what she did know without the benefit of other information. I couldn’t correct her if she got something wrong and she was free to fill in made-up details for a short while as speculation. I really wanted to tell her about Friday’s document dump, but kept quiet.
The end of the experiment wraps up quickly – reading Lise the list of missed “big stories” – it is a bit anti-climatic. It was pretty much what she expected, with a few non-life-altering bits of trivia. She hadn’t really missed anything, and had gained a lot of free time to think about and do other things.
And lived to tell the tale… : )