frugal life: stop reading news (another Pavlina hit)

[urlwolf]

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/09/overcoming-news-addiction/

Basically, if you watch/read news for 30 min a day, that's a full month of 8-hr working days that you could have saved.

I don't have a tv and barely read newspapers/news sites. I didn't know it was such a big time saver

[allen]

Could have "saved" for what, though?  Most people, or at least many, spend even more time than that -- a part of the daily tradition, even an enjoyable leisure activity.  A way to start the day and/or wind down after.

I found the article to be a bit rubbish -- the whole point of it is to live life uninformed.  If it's not your problem, it doesn't affect you.  Ignore everything that isn't you -- especially, but not necessarily, if it's bad!

Let's crawl into little unaffected bubbles where ignorance equals safety and productivity is key!  Slap the addiction label on any/every thing a person does regularly, cut all that shit out, and then you can have them work 16 hour days, provide 1 or 2 hours a day for eating (can't kick that addiction, after all) and 6 hours sleep.  Now we're talking about a productive lifestyle!

[app103]

Why watch the news when you can listen to it?

The majority of people I know listen to the morning news on the TV and don't actually watch it. They don't have time. They are getting ready for work, school, etc.

Then they listen to more in the car, driving at the same time.

Watching the TV doesn't have to involve staring intently at a box and doing nothing else at the same time. Who actually does that any way?

Not even my mom did that. She cooked, cleaned, baked cookies, ironed clothes, did her sewing, crochet, embroidery, etc...and still managed to watch soap operas all day...at the same time.

[urlwolf]

They way I see it, many activities are done just because we don't make an effort to plan our time to do anything better (more enjoyable). Watching tv is one of these activities. So the 'saved' time can be 'invested' into something you really want to do and is superenjoyable, but you normally don't do because of lack of time.

Example: adding the 30 min of checking news online (or installing apps) across one month, one can 'gain' a chunk of time and dedicate it to something more enjoyable. For me, it'd be writing short stories.

[noth(a)nk.you]

I've found an easy source for world news in the NPR Hourly Newscast (direct link to stream).  It's a nice way to start the morning and takes less than five minutes.

And I haven't checked it out, but I bet the BBC Radio would be similarly nice.

Cheers.

[hugosanchez]

My self-explanation to not spend time reading news is: If it is a really important news you will notice it anyway. If it is not, it doesn't matters.

Hugo

[Paul Keith]

For a less productivity, more focused on political awareness argument that counters allen's arguments above, see Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.