You shouldn't watch the news because you'll be more judgmental, isolated, and grumpy. Plus, it could make you dumb, according to the book "How the News Makes Us Dumb."
Why shouldn't you watch the news? Because it can actually make you dumb, according to a University of Florida history professor. In How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society, C. John Sommerville claims that we can't discern truly significant events when we watch the evening news every day. In the news everything is equally essential; we don't develop a sense of perspective about what the bigger, more important issues are. The psychological effects of current events can destroy positive energy.
Why you shouldn't watch the news
Sommerville writes that the daily news isn't an accurate reflection of what's really going on in the world today. It indicates what's going wrong with our world – how much death and destruction has occurred and how many murders/suicides/bombings/explosions went down. But it doesn't portray neighbors helping neighbors, communities banding together to raise money for cancer research, cops catching criminals, diseases going into remission, babies born healthy, personal achievements celebrated, milestones passed, or victories won! You shouldn't watch the evening news because it rarely shares good news.
Disadvantages of watching the daily news
You shouldn't watch the news first thing in the morning or just before bed because it encourages feelings of sadness, grumpiness, and anger. Watching the news colors how you see the world with its broad strokes of death, destruction, betrayal, and hopelessness. When you leave the house or go to sleep with this perspective, you're more likely to see the negative in the everyday things that happen to you! Repeatedly watching newscasts about school shootings or 911 may have extreme negative psychological effects.
You shouldn't watch the news because judging, making wrong conclusions, assuming, and extrapolating incorrectly are all automatic. When you watch the news, you're rarely given the full story. You don't know what's really going on, why things happened, or who was involved. I experienced this firsthand when I was in Toronto last week; the newscast reported heavy snow, freezing temperatures, and treacherous conditions in the downtown core. I looked out the window from my hotel on Front Street right downtown and saw blue skies (with some clouds) with otherwise clear weather. Watching the news was surreal because my reality contradicted the reports.
You shouldn't watch the news because when you're talking to people and you focus solely on the news, you lose the opportunity to really connect with others. When you watch the news, you're less likely to share information about your life, hobbies, activities, and struggles. It's easier and safer to chitchat about the latest plane crash in Indonesia – and much more threatening to talk about your daughter's drug problem.
You shouldn't watch the news because it steals time from family, hobbies, pets, goals, relationships, and other interesting and fun stuff in life! When you watch the news, you're not pursuing your goals or hanging out with your friends.
Why you shouldn't watch the news, but keep up with current events
Though you shouldn't watch the news, it is important to be aware of current events. When I was a teacher I always encouraged my students to know what was happening in the world. Current events are often interesting and stimulating to discuss. However, this doesn't mean you need to submerge yourself in the evening news every single day – or even every week.
You shouldn't watch the news because it doesn't give positive energy or optimism (and optimists are healthier people). Watching the news rarely affects your attitude and perspective in a positive way. Switch it off in favor of family time, reading, exercising, or meditating. Whether or not you watch the evening news is one of the things in life you do have control over - so take charge of your time and mind, and watch your perspective soar.
If you found You Shouldn't Watch the News: The Psychological Effects of Current Events interesting, try:
The copyright of the article Why You Shouldn't Watch the News in Psychology is owned by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Permission to republish Why You Shouldn't Watch the News in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
I understand from your synopsis that Somerville has said how buying his
book will make us smarter than watching the evening news. :)
I'm
not a part of his target audience. I was omitted from whatever research he
conducted. Whilst I'm a dag, I confess to far more discernment than he
gives me credit for. ABC
It's been 'researched' that watching
too much TV makes children dumb. Now its the evening news for adults? Maybe
its the TV per se, not its content? Maybe its Dubya's efforts to dumb us
all down that's to blame? :)
Truisms: We don't need to know as
much as Somerville before buying his book, we can't absorb everything even
if there were 26,500 hours a day to watch/listen/read all the multimedia
outlets...and have time to enjoy life the way others would like us to. And
if we really can't understand that, what hope have we of understanding
Somerville?
If say you and your family watch the evening news
together on one of the better Australian TV stations AND discuss it...maybe
it's not an either or situation at all.
So, what's a poor fella
to do. We had a newsreader Brian Henderson whose self publicising jingle
went along the lines of "we know everything we need to know because
Brian told us so." The USA has Bill O'Reilly "looking out for
you" in his no-spin zone so that alone makes manifest grounds to not
watch anything else.
BUT at the risk of cutting off my nose to
spite my face, I'd like to be the one separating whatever wheat and chaff
heads my way. Sorry...I never trusted the evening or morning news, Brian or
Bill.
Mar 14, 2007 5:10 AM
Pink :
. . This guy, Sommerville, and his book make me wonder more about
him than what he wrote. . What's his point? Is he trying to tell
us that we're not smart enough to know the difference between turkey
brained freaks like Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews? Come on, Sommerville,
what's your point? . Is it that you want Americans to separate
away from their responsibilities as citizens an to pay more attention to
the sporting events or maybe to the stuff that comes to us out of
Gainesville? .
Mar 14, 2007 7:27 AM
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen :
Don't know him, but I think he was simply saying that the news rarely if
ever adds enlightenment to your life. That's how I took it. Maybe the
"dumb" part was the hook, to make the book more enticing. - I would think most books reveal info about the author as much as
info about the topic. Content, format, length, sentence structure - it all
tells you something about the writer.
Mar 14, 2007 9:00 PM
redback :
There is at least an unstated or discreet sales pitch to every book. But
probably more often, there's hard sell. If an author (scatter-gun) aims for
an indiscriminate audience, it tells me something too. A part of my baggage
is to read the author's bio and any perceived conflict of interest. And I
know there are at least 3 sides to every coin.
There is an
opportunity cost to anything we do. I'm interested to know exactly what is
the measure of being dumbed down or being made dumb for example, by
watching the evening news. It presupposes a measure exists of our
pre-existing smarter status...as a race, a society or simply as a uni
student or "investigative" journalist in contemporary USA. :)
The good professor also thinks secular universities aren't
contributing either: <i>"...Despite the impressive size of
our secular research universities, they are losing prominence in our
national debates. They do not offer political, cultural, social or even
scientific leadership to American society..."</i>
http://www.wynnewood.org/announcement.html
I'm sure his
analysis of the secular-based evening news is small potatos compared to the
assault on American secular universities.
Mar 15, 2007 4:13 AM
Pink :
. Aeyupper! . That's for sure. .
Mar 16, 2007 9:33 PM
redback :
I'm probably unkind to Sommerville in that I've not read his book. It's
just that there seems a plethora of pop studies or research, mostly funded
by the US taxpayer?
We are being dumbed down when our elected
officials feed us bovine melena and "investigative" journalists
and accountability processes allow them to, when our education systems
manipulate what a pass level is so the majority of students (thus the
school or uni etc) succeeds. Crikey, maybe even when family pressures and
costs prevent uni study in the first place, there is dumbing down.
Of course, opportunity costs apply. Dumbing down and the absence of
upskilling have benchmarks.
Maybe Sommerville could respond
here, rather than us go to his website? ABC
In the absence of
knowing his research model, sampling methods et al, have some problem
knowing how he possibly excluded all the irrelevant variables. Whether any
evening news channel is highlighted as the worst offender. Or is this part
of the "don't blame the media, they only show stuff coz there's a
demand for it."
Maybe the secular uni of Sommerville's
concern is the breeding place...and not the evening news? ABC
Mar 17, 2007 4:21 AM
Pink :
What more can be said?
Mar 17, 2007 8:55 AM
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen :
More people have access to the evening news than university educations. We
see the news every few minutes, and it's driven by entertainment and gossip
and fear mongering -- I don't know if it's comparable to university. Sure,
uni may slant education --- but don't they still teach you HOW to think?
How to process information and make informed decisions?
Mar 17, 2007 10:25 AM
Pink :
. I wonder how many believe that the viewers actually believe what
they are being fed on television. . There is--undoubtedly--a
group that does believe what they see. Probably the extreme and fanatical
religious right. It is amazing how they have so willfully allowed
themselves to be so gullibly indoctrinated into playing the children's game
of Follow The Leader. How embarrassing it will be for them when they are
finally forced to face the truth of their self deceptions. .
Mar 17, 2007 5:57 PM
redback :
<i>"...We see the news every few minutes..."</i>
There are many experiences of the human race I cannot fit into my
lifetime. That happens to be one of them. ABC
Surveys here
indicate growing numbers of young people rarely watch the news, apart
possibly from brief sound bytes via mobile phones, Ipods, single sentence
"breaking" news scrolling across the bottom of the screen during
a pop teen TV show. Who knows if that survey involved qualitative analysis.
I'm sure universities still create a climate of learning with
variable outcomes per lecturer, per student. I already knew HOW to think so
uni only nurtured my innate (or inert?) skill. But uni still produces
students who fail at their subjects as well as those who pass with or
without the help of plagiarism.
'Teaching' is 2-way. Those who
failed may not have learnt much from the attempts to teach despite the
goals of education. Crikey, I have a profound hope 'we' all are not into
group-think but then, no empirical evidence still. ABC
If
society is truly smarter than say 50 years ago, we've done it despite 'we'
who have been dumbed down by whatever measure. But confusions persist when
we all use the word 'we'. If 'we' instead were truly smarter before the
advent of news broadcasting..aaah, the changes we can't miss because we
didn't know them?!?
I'm sorry, Laurie. I struggle to see
Sommerville pinning it down for me. He compared unis to evening news by
saying both don't contribute, not I.
There are countless
rationales for people only wanting to be funnelled (censored?) pure news
that by definition meets a subjective test of 'important'. Isn't it selfish
to be only interested in that rather than stuff that other people in an
inclusive society may simply find of passing interest to them. If 'we'
can't abide gossip etc in the news, 'we' certainly don't want it over the
back fence.
Here's one Sommerville-based: <i>"As a
Christian, I'm expected to take an eternal perspective, viewing events not
just in their historical but in their eschatological context. But I can't
do that while focusing on the churning events in the last 24
hours..."</i> http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/001231.html
Unclear
if it's a Sommerville quote but tis consistent.
Mar 18, 2007 3:56 PM
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen :
"I don't need to read the news. I see it on the faces of everyone I
meet." - Greg Brown - I guess "seeing the news every
few minutes" is an exaggeration -- it's just all over the internet,
tv, radio, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and conversations with
people -- not to mention your sound bytes via all those things. I feel like
I get the news constantly. - Perspective does change things
(historical, eschatological, cultural)....but I really do prefer being
newsless.
Mar 18, 2007 9:47 PM
redback :
News in its many shapes: Some are overwhelmed by it all..others
underwhelmed. Me..I'm just whelmed, <i>"...yet with the inner
strength to carry me to my own destination."</i> to paraphrase.
:)
I really do like the stimulation your articles bring. And I
truly can't say that for all the news I read, gloss or glaze over. :)
Mar 19, 2007 2:17 PM
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen :
Thanks, I'm glad to hear it! I really love writing.
Mar 21, 2007 5:02 AM
Pink :
. What do you like to write about most of all? . Is
pshychology your main area of interest? .
Mar 22, 2007 12:32 PM
Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen :
Yes, psychology is definitely my passion. I like writing articles that help
people live better lives, that encourage them to pursue their goals!
Mar 22, 2007 1:16 PM
Pink :
. Do you know about Thomas Harris and his work in Transactional
Analysis? .
Dec 16, 2008 4:25 PM
Guest :
this is seriously the dumbest viewpoint i have ever heard.
the
news makes you DUMB? If that's so, I'd like to see proof.
No,
the news doesn't take time out of a persons personal life.
Most
people watch the news in the morning as they're getting ready for work or
school, or if they're at home and simply can't find anything else to watch,
or they're trying to listen to something specific. It's not like people are
constantly breaking plans to stay home and watch the news.
So
next time you give your view point, at least make sure you have good
reasoning and proof.
You made a fool out of yourself with this
article.
