Daily news reading is a habit I inherited from my father, who tends to read the morning newspaper at the dining table during breakfast every morning and most other meals as well, even to this day. Some would say a bad habit, especially when among company. These days my morning newspaper consists mostly of Flipboard articles, then the local newspaper during lunch and dinner if I am at home.
Aside from mealtime readings, I also regularly take breaks to check what is going on in social media and my RSS reader. I am, to invent a word, hyperinformed. As soon as something happens, I like to know about it. A bus exploded on EDSA the other day and I told my parents about it before it came up on local news TV.
This may be a bit of information overflow. And some even say that for the sake of our own mental health, we should avoid consuming the news too regularly. Especially these days, when the news is full of negativity: natural disasters, politicians being stupid or corrupt, crimes and atrocities, invasions of privacy, hatred, racism, war, poverty, and so on. The world can be dark, and news tends to highlight the negative, and consuming it too regularly may begin to affect our worldview.
There is a desire to stay informed of course, I still consider that a duty as a responsible citizen. To know what issues are being faced by people in our country and in the world, so that we may help craft the decisions to solve those issues.
But perhaps regular consumption is not so necessary. It might be a good idea to shift to some kind of weekly or monthly schedule of news consumption, instead of daily. The problem would be finding sources that can sum up the past week or month’s news, distill it into those things important to know. This might be challenging, especially for local news. But maybe I’ll start looking around.
But then what would I read during breakfast?
See Also