Despite talking about avoiding the news, I’ll confess that I dip in more often than I should. I blame my data hoarding tendencies, but I think it started for me a little after 9/11 when I started obsessively checking the headlines every 5-30 minutes to make sure nothing else had blown up.
The reality is, something’s always blowing up in the news. I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out that news is novel; it’s being reported because it doesn’t happen every day. But media organizations have learned what gets attention, and they’ve gotten really really good at it, to the point where, as I mentioned once before, news pretty much boils down to “bad things are happening that are out of your control, people are getting punished, and hey, sports.”
My latest excuse for participating in the conversation is that I like to know what’s happening in Toronto (and not just if things are blowing up.) But really, I have Twitter for that, so I don’t have any real reason to go to the home page of the local paper to scan the headlines and get sucked into some horribly stupid bit of poison.
So it seems I can’t be trusted to police myself, so I’m invoking the “avoiding the news nuclear option”: I’m blocking new news habit from my browser. Here’s how you can do it too:
On Windows, you’ll want to edit c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and on the Mac it’s /etc/hosts – both will likely require admin privileges. Then you just add lines like this:
www.sitetoblock.com 127.0.0.1
And you won’t be able to see them anymore. If you need back in, just delete the line and save the file again. There are other software solutions, both for your computer and for your network gear (so your iPad won’t be a back door in) but this is simple enough for me.
I’m a little disappointed in myself for having to “take away the keys” so to speak, but it’s time. I’ve gained no real benefits and lost too many brain cells and “mindset points” to the news already. Time to cut the cord with a machete and start avoiding the news like a boss. It’ll find me if it’s important enough.
(Oh, and if you’re curious about the straw that broke my back, have I mentioned about how I try not to complain when I’m around friends, and don’t let them do it either, because it becomes a competition to see who has the worse life? OPSEU, the Ontario government union, made it into an actual contest where people competed to see who was worse off. My mind was reeling for 20 minutes on that one. No link, because I’m trying to be responsible.)
Photo by James Bowe
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