[Music] one year ago I quit the news that meant no social media no Reddit no more refreshing the New York Times homepage 30 times a day no more of this whatever this is this single decision has made a lasting impact on my life and has gotten me to rethink everything about the media we consume every day and if you think I'm a completely privileged to even be able to do an experiment like this I like to try to change your mind so quitting the news was really an impulsive decision I just got to the point
where I had enough and I needed to take a break from it and very quickly I realized one of the challenges would be how do you quit the news when it's everywhere it's on social media at bust UPS in conversations with your partner first I deleted social media from my phone my relationship with social media has actually been pretty healthy for the past year but I didn't want to chance it by seeing the news in my feet then I purchased a full year subscription to blo site an extension that you guessed it blocks the SS
of your choice from your web browser I guess my youth pastor was right sometimes abstinence really is the only way then importantly I told my wife my wife Nat is the best love her lots wait really but she consumes the news a lot and has a pension for telling me all the awful events of the day oh my god did you hear what happened in the US oh my god did you hear about the plane crash oh my god did you hear that there's a man attempting to break the record for the longest yawn and
he failed after 10 hours I don't want to hear it I told her up front hey this is what I'm trying to do please do not share the news with me I don't like it I actually have no idea how you're going to do this video without coming across as a completely obnoxious prick honestly cuz that's how I read you from this from this Behavior yeah that's fair that's fair then I sat through one very painful day where all I could do was think about the news I bet the headlines have changed 100 times today
I bet there's a lot of really important news that I'm missing out on then I got through the day and realized nothing happened the world moved on even without me compulsively checking on the state of it if you're anything like me your entire life you've believed that staying informed was a Civic act good evening from CBS News headquarters in New York you've been told that consuming the news makes you a better smarter and more interesting person an informed member of society but what if all of that was just Li yeah I think it's one of
the biggest coups of the news industry to convince people that consuming their information is a responsibility of every person it's certainly advantageous for them to have people believe that that's true that's Sam coros he's the CEO of a very fast growing tech company called levels but today I'm talking with him to learn more about his countercultural view on the news I've been news sober for 11 years I I've come to the realization that the news news is poison for my mind and my attention and the news is it's technically true but it leaves you with
an understanding of the state of the world that is inaccurate if you watch the news and now you're afraid of flying technically yes there was a plain incident but you now have an understanding of the world that's not true most people think that the world is more violent than it is they think that poverty and hunger are worse now than they were in the past they think that deaths from natural disasters are worse they think all of these things are worse there's a really great book you've maybe read factfulness by Hans rosling that talks about
a lot of these things the better angels of our nature there another book that talks about these things how things are getting massively better at a rate that is quite literally unprecedented in human history and not only do we not know that we actually think things are getting worse and I think that's entirely because of the news I can already hear the comments on this video like you can't quit the news you need to be an informed citizen this is your responsibility what would you say to those comments I would just challenge people to suggest
that maybe try not doing it for a little while and see if it makes your life better or worse and it will probably at a minimum have no impact and you won't miss anything important it will probably make your life a lot better I've always thought reading the news was an altruistic act I was becoming better informed an active par participant in democracy but the more I thought about it and the more I got into this experiment the more I realized that these were probably just stories I was telling myself to hide the truth if
I was being honest with myself this Behavior felt more like an addiction like much of the media we consume today it's a compulsive act not driven by curiosity or a desire to learn but out of a dopamine reward we rarely seek out the news to be informed or educated more often than not we're just trying to scratch and itch as the months passed being news sober I noticed something pretty incredible my anxiety levels started to decrease I stopped worrying so much about what was going on in the world and I started focusing more on the
things that I could control every day I focus on making a productive effort with my work spending more present time with my family trying to improve my quality of sleep each night and if you think wow must be nice not have to worry about the growing crisis in South Sudan or one of the many other terrible things happening around the world then I would have to agree and I'd have to ask you to be honest with yourself why are you reading the news what are you doing with that information do you really need to know
about every instance of human suffering in the world and who gets to decide which information is important in your life anyway even after quitting the news I found that some events in world news still found their way to me so I was curious about how informed I might be about the world so I've decided to take the 202 for New York Times quiz it's filled with 48 questions about the big events of the [Music] year the New York Times style section reported on the Gen Z trend of teenage boys buying expensive colone what is the
trend called # odor goals fragrance flexing or smell maxing uh I'm going to have to go with an educated guest here and say fragrance flexing nope smell maxing with two x's what the [ __ ] so I ended up doing a lot better than I thought I was going to do I ended up getting 32 out of 48 correct but I guess if I was back in school that would be a 66 which is a d I will say that I was very surprised with the number of events that I did recall or hear about
through friends family or through Nat I wasn't aware that that that I shouldn't be sharing the news with you I probably share news with you in your Instagram DM several times a day have you not been watching and I've got to say none of these questions had any significance or importance on my life personally and if I hadn't heard about them I think I would have been okay I've come to realize that being informed about current events does not improve my life but consuming news every day was certainly having a negative impact I bet every
single person watching this video has at least one strained relationship because of the news especially when it comes to politics today extreme political commentary is the norm because it prays on our most Basic Instincts it Taps into fear outrage and tribalism hardwired emotions that make us crave belonging and react impulsively it's divisive for the sake of division extreme for the sake of views loud because quiet isn't entertaining I don't know if it's fair to say that all news reporting specifically well- researched journalism isn't important maybe I've just been brainwashed too much by all the New
York Times ads I've heard on the daily but I do think there's something valuable about Journal holding those in power accountable without Quality Reporting political corruption would likely only get worse many world leaders would use this to gain even more control and the world would probably be a worse place for it but the proliferation of the 24-hour news cycle Sensational headlines and negativity bias of the news definitely isn't helping I think it's perfectly reasonable to say no thank you to the news because really There's an opportunity cost to everything that we do when you to
refresh news sites scroll through Reddit comments or even read deep dives into Global conflicts around the world you're also making a choice not to consume other media what what are some of the benefits that you've found from quitting the news I was consuming quite a lot of news and social media and I decided for that month just as an experiment I would just do a onetoone trade for my news consumption time for reading books and and I read I think eight books that month which is probably more books than I read in the previous several
years I've averaged two books a week since giving up the news for the last 11 years I don't remember who has this heuristic but I think it's a pretty good one which is that they only consume information if it took the producer a 100 times longer to make it than it takes him to read it if you're consuming information that is just like in one ear out the other and took no time to synthesize or compile or understand what the material actually means that's probably not good because of this advice I got from Sam I've
had one of the most important shifts in my behavior yet since I had more time in my schedule I wasn't checking social media as often and I wasn't feeling this constant state of anxiety and the need to keep up on the goings on of the world I was able to fill it with something much more productive so like Sam I started listening to audiobooks think about the difference this small habit switch would make over the course of a year would you rather be the person that read 500 news articles or read 50 books what media
do you think would enrich your life more make you less anxious teach you more about yourself by the way if you're looking for a better influence on your life then I've got two things that might help first I send out a short weekly email on self-development every Monday morning it's practical to the point and written to help you reach progress towards your goals you can get it at mattel.com newsletter also by by the way I do have a patreon account where I am accepting people's money if you want to give me $5 you get access
to some pretty awesome content like my secret podcast exclusive AMA interviews with myself and extended interviews it's just $5 a month that's it that's all I've got to say bye-bye so I think the big Point that's worth making is that quitting the news doesn't mean that you stop learning in fact the opposite is true you're just being more mindful about the media that you do consume I think that's a that's a better way to live one's life is it's better to know things that are deep and important and are impactful on civilization uh and you
can't you cannot know that from the news the entire world isn't going to quit the news most of it is hooked but you don't have to be you can make a decision right now to limit the amount of news that you take in and replace it with something more positive more helpful and more supportive in helping you reach your goals did this video change your mind about the news if not just like the comments on fire below
