David Mitchell

Worrying about what the media and technology are doing to me and everyone else seems to be quite a theme for me since I was a teenager, so when it comes to a book entitled Stop Reading the News: A Manifesto for Happier, Calmer, and Wiser Life, I’m the proverbial choir and it’s the preacher.

This book consists of 33 very short chapters, most of which make a separate argument for giving up the news, completely. The titles are things like ‘News is to the Mind What Sugar is to the Body’, ‘News Kills Creativity’, ‘News is Invented by Journalists’, ‘News Encourages Terrorism’.

I’ll focus on the book’s most striking argument, which responds to what many of us probably think is the best reason to ‘keep on top of’ the news: ethical responsibility. Isn’t it important to know what’s going on in the world so that we can help?

Dobelli, a Swiss businessman and writer, says this is a ‘cognitive error’. The news only reports on a small selection of wars and disasters that it thinks is newsworthy. That means the ones that are new and visually arresting, and that affect people ‘like us’. An endless stream of upsetting information only skews our perception of risk, stops us from thinking clearly, and benefits the media companies who seize, and sell, our attention.

If anything, the news demotivates us because it deludes us into thinking that it represents a kind of global circle of empathy in which we participate by consuming the news.

What, then, should we do?

Assume, says Dobelli, that there’s ongoing suffering and injustice in the world, and give money to organisations that work to address it. They are best placed to know how and when to act.

And stay informed – just not through the news. Read books – twice. Read textbooks! Seek out investigative journalism and analysis of current affairs in periodicals. Make time for conversations with intelligent people. We’re even encouraged to use the internet, as long as we can avoid news sites. The news feeds us context-less facts but says little about the slow and hidden processes that really shape the word. The news obscures these truths. The news makes us stupider.

Many of this book’s criticisms will be familiar to any thoughtful person. Stop Reading the News covers similar ground to The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton, and is reminiscent of my old favourite, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, which made clear way back in 1985 that the news is, first and foremost, entertainment, and almost entirely irrelevant to our everyday lives. (Dobelli assures us that if anything does happen that we really need to know about, someone we know will tell us.)

But Dobelli’s arguments are made with compelling succinctness. And the prescription is unequivocal.

We are not told to become more critical and media literate. We are not told to watch out for doom-scrolling and news-induced anxiety. We are told to run away.

And we shouldn’t even wait to finish the book. Chapter Four opens like this:

‘Have I just opened your eyes? If the answer’s yes, then read no more. What you should do right now is this: banish the news from your life. Opt out. Radically. Make it as difficult as possible for you to access your usual news sources. Unsubscribe from all their newsletters. Delete the news apps on your phone and your iPad right this minute. Sell your TV. Delete all the news pages from the favourites in your browser. Don’t choose a news site as your homepage…’ (p. 19).

The news is an addictive substance that rewires our brains. We are too weak to dip in and out. The only option is ‘radical abstinence’ and we’re advised on an initial decontamination period of thirty days for us to see the effects. The result is a calmer mental life, a lot more time, and the opportunity to be truly educated and empowered. 

Happy New Year!