Saturday, August 11, 2012

How to deaddict from news media

Whether you admit it or not, news media has almost integral part of our everyday life. We start our day with the newspapers. We turn on the TV to check for live, breaking news. We again check Google News or the online editions to re-read the same. We again check in the evening, night, and before going to bed. We follow news media as though we want to track everything under sun. But when it comes to news, BAD NEWS sells.  All the bad news are in front pages and somewhere some corner some positive news is embedded. Most of the news that are supposed to be 'breaking news' are not really breaking.  For instance, TV channels show a politician leaving his home at 9.15 am and reaching Prime Minister's office at 9.23 am and both are broadcasted simultaneously with time stamps. Since you may not know who is the politician among the crowd, he is red-circled, zoomed, and animated.
A Chennai friend says he can never think of a day without Hindu and coffee. My sister says she is fed up of reading all the negative news and thinking of stopping the newspaper; but will continue to read online. Newspapers claim to be "green", nullify the same through its supplements. Are we not supposed to start our day on a positive note? Do we need to bury our heads into news which does not contribute to our day in any form but only negative? No, this thinking not to turn blind eyes towards all that is negative - corruption, murders abuses etc.  The point is we are getting over exposed. Here are some ideas; you may want to try one or all of them to deaddict from the news
  • Stop reading the newspaper in the morning. You may want to read it in the evening.
  • Stop reading the newspaper for once in a week.
  • Stop reading the newspaper for every alternative day
  • If you are commuting to work by bus, do not carry the newspaper.
  • Stop being anxious expecting the newspaper boy.
  • If you have news subscribed through RSS Feed, Email, or on your Home page - unsubscribe them.
  • If you have time to watch TV news, switch off and use that time for something else.
  • Unsubscribe news through SMS - its a big distraction
Any important news, you always will come to know through your known contacts.
Many spiritual practices encourage to disconnect from the news media.
Bottom line is - a news necessarily not bring in knowledge.

No comments:

Post a Comment