A good while ago I gave up watching/ reading general news sites and for some reason tonight I feel compelled to make a few observations about it.
I used to be a total new fiend, often reading the bbc news over lunch and then watching the news in the evening. As many have mention news is often just noise and you don’t get down to the important issue surround the news. It is a stream of facts and opinion but does not encourage understanding of issues. I do still read arstechinca although I make a rule of being very selective as often the headline is enough take away information about the topic. I admit it was hard to give up at first as are all habits
What have been the benefits? Well it certainly freed up some time. Particularly around lunch time. While I don’t always use that time productively I do get though more technical articles and books. That is I do more stuff that I love to do.
People often talk about the news so does not reading or listening the news affect that? Not that I have noticed, People have started to tell me the news and I get to ask more interesting questions because I am slightly outside of the world of news. So I think it makes talking about current affairs more interesting. Friends telling you the news act like a filter so you only get the more interesting stuff. As current affairs is mainly discussed at work if something happens over the weekend I only learn about it on Monday. As news does not directly effect my life on a time scale of two days this is not big deal.
It is also amazing how long stories can go on for. When I was reading the news every day I never really used to notice this.
In summary I have found giving up on tracking current affair on a day to day basis has been a good thing.
Brought to you by the slightly random post collective for not reason at all! 
