Stop Reading The News!

Part 3

We also naturally have a few biases that can be exploited by news media.

Negativity bias, the fact that we respond more sensitively to negative stimuli than positive ones leads to and overall more miserable sense of the world if we keep consuming news. This also incentivizes journalists to report more on negative events than positive ones as the former will more likely lead to an engagement. I mean, what are the odds that a news article reports on how many people didn't die in a hospital fire? Instead, the headlines usually have a death count list with the amount of injured and the total financial cost.

The news also feeds us negative information that we have no control over. This can lead to a level of cynicism and dread that actually teaches us to be passive. After being confronted with so many things at once all around the world, we begin to feel helpless.

This is called learned helplessness. A sense of depressed hopelessness that can spill over into other areas of our life including family and local issues. The kind of stuff we actually do have control over.

''Devote your energies to things you can influence. There are more than enough of those - but an earthquake on the other side of the world isn't one of them.''

The news also plays into our confirmation bias despite that feeling that we truly are being informed and responsible seekers of knowledge. We more often than not seek out information that confirms our opinions.

''We're masters of interpreting new information so that it remains constant with our previous point of view. The more news you consume, the more frequently you'll come across confirmatory information, even if your opinion is false.''

Instead, Dobelli suggests that you should always ask yourself ''what specific facts you have to learn, in order to change your mind.''

About any belief or opinion you actively endorse, the news also exploits hindsight bias - the error we make in confidently understanding why something happened only after it happened. As he notes, articles before the 2008 recession rarely predicted any recession occurring and, once it did happen, numerous articles would serve upon one or two seemingly obvious explanations for the recession. If it was so obvious, why did almost nobody predict it? This is partially due to the nature of the news which is constrained to explaining a few explanatory factors because nobody wants to read a detailed academic report on their bathroom break.

But ask yourself is this really helping you understand the world?

The news keeps the opinion volcano bubbling also, whether it's climate change, artificial intelligence or Sri Lanka, we immediately start forming an opinion despite our lack of knowledge about the issue. ''We form opinions on issues that don't really interest us, that cannot be fully answered, or that are too complex without in-depth analysis.''

This is due to the affect heuristic which is, simply put, our reliance on emotions to make decisions. We either like or don't like something immediately. The news feeds us an insane amount of stimulus that leads to an affective response about issues that realistically require a more in-depth analysis. '''The news is constantly urging us to form opinions. This robs us of concentration and inner peace.'' You don't need an opinion of everything, it's okay to apprear like you don't know everything.