Of course it’s not an explicit expectation, but the news cycle is dominated by a mix of 24/7 news and daily summaries. It’s rare that I see weekly, bi-weekly, monthly summaries. I’m thinking, is there really that much that can happen in a day and that warrants our attention? Most news are clickbait focused on the negative, making us feel depressed and feeds our negative emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the news actively contributes to the mental health crisis.
At the same time I think it can be of importance to have some understanding on what’s going on in one’s local area, one’s country and in the world. For me I think a weekly summary would be good balance, but those are weirdly hard to find. What are your thoughts?
I don’t think we are. I mean in the old times, newspapers used to be published once a day. And you’d have the evening news on TV. And it kind of aligns with daily rituals. You can read it with your morning ciffee, or grab it on your way to work…
These days you can read news whenever you want. And they’re there almost immediately. Plus a lot of people use social media to share news articles. So it doesn’t really follow any cycle.
Speaking more generally, people like to stay in the loop. Things are most interesting when they just happened, not 20 days later… And attention works in a strange way in the age if the internet anyways… You’re always available, or someplace else. Notifications pop up all day. And we check our phone like 200 times a day to check on arbitrary things.
I’d say read a magazine, if you want bi-weekly or monthly updates. The articles in there are more nuanced and interesting anyways. And magazines are a thing and kind of made for that.