After the latest round of shootings earlier this month, I had a moment of nausea that led me to think it might be a good time for a news hiatus. The weather was gorgeous — high summer in Vermont — and an array of family were due to visit. So rather than read depressing headlines all summer, I decided to take a couple weeks off from the news. Maybe, I thought, it will make me happier and less anxious if I just don’t hear any of it.
In the process of undergoing this experiment, I learned a couple unexpected things. First, that daily life, even without news, has plenty of stressors all on its own, and secondly, that some news will out. Oh, and a third thing, that your friends, will eventually find you boring and run out of things to say when you’re around.
To the first revelation, that daily life can be stressful: Duh! Yes, I encountered various difficulties in work and life, and yes, they did stress me out. It was while fretting about one such tension-filled incident that I came to the realization that news, upsetting though it may be, provides a distraction from the more immediate worries in our lives. The real world is still the more real. News that is not happening to us directly takes on the qualities of entertainment — exotic, exciting, and everchanging.
On the other hand, not having news as a diversion caused me to think about life on a more macro level, giving me insights I might not have had if I’d stayed caught up in the minutiae of the day to day. So there’s that.
I only heard one news story during my two week sabbatical, and that was partially my fault — I read an email that I knew from the title probably contained news but I clicked on it anyway… It was, of course, the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide” story. I resisted the urge to learn more but just that one bit of information was plenty to chew on. (Did he jump or was he pushed? As if we had to ask…)
The last bit of insight I gained from my news break was that news is necessary fodder for conversation. It’s social glue, in a way, giving us all common topics to discuss and deplore, or just laugh about. Good or bad, without it, entire rooms of adults can be reduced to silence as I discovered at a recent social gathering among normally voluble friends. As we finished our meal, an unusal quietude descended upon us, as we all sat there sat there wracking our brains for something to say that wasn’t news related.
My two weeks ended, a smidge prematurely, on the evening of the 14th day. Family caught me up quickly and there was little in their reports to surprise me. A high profile death, a stock market mini-crash, a plethora of mass shootings — all terrible, all noteworthy, but nothing we don’t read about all the time. This stuff just happens now. It is, alas, the new normal.
There was, however, one news item, which came out the day before my news isolation began, that led to a more subtle realization. The story pertained to the DNC case against Trump, the Russians, and Wikileaks, which, amazingly, the DNC lost. It was such a blockbuster ruling, I was sure it would be discussed for weeks to come. I was wrong. By dismissing the DNC’s case and affirming the first amendment rights of news organizations, the judge failed to confirm the dominant narrative, and so the press chose to either bury the story or not report it at all. The lesson here is simple — you can read all the news you want, but chances are, you still won’t know what’s really going on.
So that’s the scoop on no news — cutting it out might relax you for a while but it won’t eliminate the routine problems of life, which bubble up no matter what. As for the official news of the day, missing a week or two won’t kill you — it will all still be there whenever you decide to rejoin the human race and tune in.
