Creators Over Consumers

 

Consuming news, a vicious circle of overburdening of problems that we cannot influence. The best analogy put forward in ‘The Guardian’ article on the hazards of the overabundance of food which can cause obesity, diabetes when not consumed consciously. “But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body.” -Rolf Dobelli from The Art of Thinking Clearly

It is easy to scroll through your phone and continue mindlessly ingesting new information on situations and problems you cannot rectify and doesn't bring much value into your lives. The plus point is that it can turn into a few minutes' topics for a conversation in a group setting if you remember it.

What people don't realize is that this approach of keeping yourself preoccupied for the sense of “keeping busy”. It's not doing much other than making us passively involved in an overwhelming information-generating system of news that most likely everyone else has access to as well.

News has a “shock” component to it, which is a marketing strategy to get as many readers to engage with the topic beforehand. This also suggests that numerous details that we constantly get flustered with can be misleading, just for the sake of grabbing the attention of people.

Studies have shown that people who regularly ingest media on a long-term basis are most likely to adopt a worldview that is pessimistic and desensitized. This in turn retaliates in our lifestyle, depriving people of the joys of being satisfied and just happy. The scientific term for it is "learned helplessness".  Where a person is most likely to see solely the problems of daily life and not the solutions to them.

It's definitely important to be aware of what's going on around the world, but definitely not worth substituting your mental health for the sake of it. Most importantly it kills creativity, if you're someone who wants to create something it's definitely not in the T.V news channels or papers. You won't find creative people lurking around with a daily newspaper, would you? They work with what they've got and improvise on the way. As Rolf Dobelli quotes it “If you want to come up with old solutions, read the news. If you are looking for new solutions, don’t.” 

One suggestion is to consider the relevance of what you choose to consume, do you want to learn about it? Is it helpful? Or is it something you’d be updated with by others anyways? My point is if your goal is to maintain a clear mind and a positive outlook, balance out the time to your liking, just remember too much of anything is harmful. 

                                                                                                                     - Tanzila Kaiser [15.12.21]