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Mental Health
Why I Don’t Watch or Read the News
You might say that I am creating my own reality.
Like many personal choices I seem to be making in the past couple of years, it turns out that choosing not to consume anything from the news media is a controversial move. Apparently, I am living on the edge or something just by shutting out the constant stream of unwanted opinions and information that the glory of the world’s news outlets have to offer. I have decided to do this because it makes my reality a lot better and I was surprised to hear from friends and strangers that it offends them.
In fact, I don’t stop at the news media. I don’t even click on video links that people send me anymore. If you send me a YouTube or TikTok link, it will be a very rare experience for me to click on it and view it. Why? Because I don’t know what I’m clicking on.
What appears before me when I click a random video link is out of my control and then it suddenly overtakes my mental bandwidth and comes at me powerfully with whatever message it contains. It’s difficult for anyone to unsee something or make a choice about what they’re processing when they’re already in the moment watching it.
I want to preserve the peaceful state of my mental environment. I don’t allow just anything into my realm…