Farhad Manjoo at Slate makes the argument succinctly. When a big media event is breaking, he suggests you turn off your TV, walk away from Twitter and the Internet in general, and read a book or clean your gutters or something. You can get caught up in a few minutes the next day.
Finally, load up your favorite newspaper’s home page. Spend about 10 minutes reading a couple of in-depth news stories about the events of the day. And that’s it: You’ve now caught up with all your friends who spent the past day and a half going out of their minds following cable and Twitter. In fact, you’re now better informed than they are, because during your self-imposed exile from the news, you didn’t stumble into the many cul-de-sacs and dark alleys of misinformation that consumed their lives. You’re less frazzled, better rested, and your rain gutters are clear.
The problems we associate with the term Internet addiction but in fact apply to any frequently-updating information source—be they a 24-hour news channel or a real-time stock price—are exacerbated when all eyes are on a single story. News outlets become ever more reckless in their competition to get the next piece of information before their competitors, and social media becomes awash in erroneous information.
Chemically, your body responds to new information in a way that makes you seek yet more information. Every update that comes in and doesn’t give you any more substantive information is a disappointment and increases your craving, just as a weak dose of a drug disappoints and exacerbates an addiction. It makes you more likely to accept bad, unverified information simply out of wanting any information at all about what is going on. You quickly wear yourself out and rarely end up learning anything before anyone else. Even when you do find information more quickly than you would have, it is purchased at a high cognitive price.
Going to step away instead of obsessively refreshing feeds & video. Trying to remember my viewing of media helps no one & stresses me out.
— Anil Dash (@anildash) April 15, 2013
The only situation where it makes sense to monitor a developing situation closely is when you need to make some practical decision quickly. When I drove to work and there was some larger than usual probability of a blizzard, I paid very close attention to what the weather people were saying throughout the day. There was a reason—if the risk of getting stranded or stuck driving in dangerous conditions grew high enough, I would make the decision to go home early. But the stress of indecision and the inherent uncertainty involved was never pleasant. I wouldn’t voluntarily put myself in that situation.
Yet thousands, possibly millions of people do this all the time when they voluntarily let themselves get sucked into a big media event that doesn’t require them to take any practical action. There are plenty of understandable reasons for doing this. We can be concerned about people we care about in the areas the events are occurring, or perhaps we feel connected because we grew up there or it is near where we are currently living.
Regardless of how understandable it may be, it is counterproductive. Dobelli is right—you are more likely to end up with an inaccurate perspective if you subject yourself to breaking news continuously. The toxicity of your information diet will make you sick. You should be working to improve your habits of media consumption during normal and exceptional times; do not let big media events reverse your progress.