Stop Reading the News: A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life

I was only halfway through the introduction when I decided to go ahead and follow the advice of the title, but I still enjoyed reading it all the way through; it is well argued and pacy, with just enough anecdotal tidbits to lend it colour as well.Why liberating? Many of the arguments are there to reassure us: giving up the news does not mean we don't care, or we don't want to be informed - quite the opposite.In the month since I've stopped checking my phone incessantly for the latest hit, I have felt more in control and calmer.... like my phone serves me, and not the other way around.

The reasons to stop reading (and listening) to news are logical and persuasive. ‘Digitalisation has turned news from harmless form of entertainment into a weapon of mass destruction, and it’s aimed straight at our mental health’, says Dobelli. He has more reasons to support this statement, but before that, he questions whether ‘A man from Texas eats five kilos of worms’ is news; or, ‘China is building a new aircraft carrier’. Even describing them as ‘breaking news’ does not change the fact that they are largely irrelevant to our personal world. Compared to books, news is an invention roughly only 360 years old. People have and continue to live happily without reading news. We cannot leave it to journalists and editors to filter what is important or relevant. They either do not know or do not care. On 11 November 1993 the first web browser, Mosaic was launched. You didn’t know? That’s all right; it did not make the news. What made the news that day? “Pope fractures his shoulder’, and Israeli PM meets Clinton’. Dobelli says that news is outside our circle of competence, a term used by Warren Buffet who advised that we ‘know our circle of competence and stick within it’. Tom Watson of IBM says the same thing: ‘I’m no genius. I’m smart in spots – but I stay within my spots’. Apart from the time-wasting aspect (Dobelli calculates that we lose between one to one and a half hours on news), he says that news obscures the big picture, and gets our risk assessment all wrong. When a bridge collapses, newspapers focus on the car and driver that went down with it. What happened to him is tragic, but we don’t need to know about him. We need to know how that bridge was constructed and how many bridges are built like that, and where they are. News, Dobelli says, confirms our mistakes, and ‘confirmation bias is most dangerous of all when it comes to ideologies (‘Ideologies are the stupidest things our brains have produced’). The trouble is that ‘most people don’t realise that they have fallen prey to an ideology. News also reinforces hindsight bias. We can look back and say we understood what caused the 2008 financial crisis, but when we’re right in the heart of the next one, we wouldn’t be any clearer about the looming disaster either. News also reinforces availability bias – leading us to rely on irrelevant considerations that had budged their way into our brains. News inhibits thinking. We need to spend more than ten minutes to grasp ideas and stories. Reading news snippets in under ten minutes is pointless because within a week we will not be able to recall them. The key is to read things that add value to our base knowledge. That is how our brains are biologically wired. The list goes on. More than what space permits for this review. The important thing is to know that people (Dobelli, for one) have done it – avoid reading the news – and have become clearer thinkers. The cheat sheet for those who want to cheat, is to read one long article journal a week – like, say, the Economist; but give yourself a time limit and read at one go. As Nicholas Carr wrote: ‘When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallow thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain’. Hence, Dobelli suggests that if we wish to fish in a different pond, we should go to a book store rather than go online

A great deal of the well constructed benefits of giving up the chasing of the news in this great book hit home like incoming artillery rounds. As I read I soon realised that I was indeed hooked on checking out news, and clearly wasting my life and time reinforcing my anger, stress and frustration. This was from main stream media sources that I actually hated for their biased propaganda.It was clear relying on running 24 hr breaking news, turning on to check the tv news often on the hour or half hour, checking breaking news on my smartphone when I should have been enjoying a nice day out, was not doing me any good at all. It was obvious what my government and the main stream media told me was actually not “safe and effective” at all. They don’t care, they will continue injecting it into us for their benefit.I have not watched or looked up anything for a week now (early days I know). I have read more, been much much happier and don’t feel lied to or used.I can’t say I will be able to totally cut out news but feel confident I will be drastically reducing the detrimental habit and getting my life back.I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

How can there be breaking news all day on Sky News! How are we supposed to keep up with any of this? After thinking these things myself and wading through so much clickbait and fake news that was driving me mad, I thought there had to be another way. So I read this and it details many numerous reasons why to quit the news and why it’s unnecessary for you. This book has the answers to why all that breaking news is not going to help you one bit. A great and fairly quick read, we’ll worth it.I quit news cold Turkey but I occasionally find myself on a news article but don’t beat yourself up just quit again!

Quick and reasonably interesting read, with very short chapters (presumably aimed at recovering newsholics whose concentration has been shot by the Mail Online and the BBC).Stresses the negative effect of news on our mental health and productivity from the get-go. Which is fine if you are mired in Heat, TMZ, tabloids and TV. But the idea that we don't need news at the moment does rather act as an enabler for our current political masters. News is not a substitute for action in a democracy, but information is essential for anyone who wants to participate fully as a citizen, insofar as one is able to do so, and critically examining the difference between the entertainment industry and useful information is important. Without that distinction, you get Boris Johnson!Learning to be disciplined and to discriminate between news sources is far better than fingers in ears and "La la la!".And using examples of achievement such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett does not encourage me either.Maybe the Swiss trust their government more than I trust mine. Maybe they shouldn't.

Intelligent, concise and very compelling. You must read it. If you are starting to consider that news is everywhere and making you anxious, this book explains why.

This book convinced me to finally stop reading and watching the news completely. In addition, I’ve stopped using social media as entertainment. I became a news junkie 4 years ago at the start of the pandemic in 2019 and felt it was time to stop. This book gave me that push. I just read books and watch movies now, anything that’s long form and not scrolling related.The author is excellent. Short chapters, punchy writing, and a very engaging read. There’s very little fluff with every chapter and every sentence being meaningful. You can easily finish in 1 or 2 days and you’ll gain a lot from the book.After stopping my news consumption, I feel a lot calmer and comfortable being bored, and I’ve had major productivity gains. The below quote summarizes the overall productivity benefit of not reading the news or scrolling in general.“Over the course of my life I've read countless books on time management and tried out dozens of their well-meaning suggestions. Yet I have come to the conclusion that, for all the strategies and techniques they suggest, there is no easier and more productive method of reclaiming time than giving up the news"

The author and the translator do a great deal of justice to the topic with a fuller than expected treatment. It makes for a fulfilling read. It can be read in a single sitting in a couple of hours. And will save countless hours once you start to heed its calling. No surprises there.I had already been thinking about it. Although not in such great detail. But the fact of the matter is that we treat news as elated public gossip and entertainment and thus justify the time that goes in to following it daily. The book sort of opens your eyes wide and removes any sort of guilt or embarrassment one may have while admitting to not reading the news. In fact, it makes for a permanent place on the desk where others may catch a glance. A definite conversation starter :-)

Probabilmente chi acquista questo libro ha già deciso di ridurre il proprio consumo di notizie e notiziari. Il libro vi darà un sacco di buoni motivi per andare fino in fondo alla vostra decisione. L'unica piccola critica è che i concetti di base potevano essere sintetizzati in un articolo (e in effetti potete trovare l'articolo di Dobelli su Internet...)

Der Verfasser legt exakt das dar, was ich eigentlich schon immer bezüglich der Nachrichten empfunden habe, einschließlich der Reaktionen der Umwelt: Unverständnis, Vorwurf der Ignoranz oder mangelnden Empathie... Eine gute Argumentationsgrundlage, um anderen deutlich zu machen, warum man es ablehnt, Nachrichten zu schauen oder zu lesen. Sehr gut finde ich auch den Hinweis darauf, daß die zunehmende Informationsflut, einschließlich der vielen fake news, und die Möglichkeit, alles sofort öffentlich zu kommentieren, zu immer mehr Aggression und unsachlicher Feindseligkeit führt. Das Buch war für mich definitiv eine Bereicherung.

Entre tanta información este libro ha sido la señal de tránsito para parar y retomar hacia dónde poner la atención en el camino que nos toca consumir con las noticias de hoy, muy recomendado