Really like. Should think E.B.
On 8/21/15, Hoe Jin Chin <chenheren@gmail.com> wrote:
> Like
>
> 2015-08-21 14:08 GMT+08:00 Junaid Tahir <mjunaidtahir@gmail.com>:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> * News Is Bad For Your Brain <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>*
>>
>> *News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and
>> hinders
>> your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming
>> it altogether*
>>
>> *By Rolf Dobelli, Author of THE ART OF THINKING CLEARLY*
>>
>> In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the
>> hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and
>> have started to change our diets.
>>
>> But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar
>> is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of
>> trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't
>> require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike
>> reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can
>> swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured
>> candies for the mind.
>>
>> Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we
>> faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how
>> toxic news can be.
>> News misleads. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> Take the following event. A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge
>> collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car. The person in the
>> car. Where he came from. Where he planned to go. How he experienced the
>> crash (if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What's relevant? The
>> structural stability of the bridge. That's the underlying risk that has
>> been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. But the car is flashy,
>> it's
>> dramatic, it's a person (non-abstract), and it's news that's cheap to
>> produce.
>>
>> News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our
>> heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The
>> collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is
>> under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated.
>>
>> We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an
>> airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that
>> risk, regardless of its real probability. If you think you can compensate
>> with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong. Bankers
>> and economists – who have powerful incentives to compensate for
>> news-borne
>> hazards – have shown that they cannot. The only solution: cut yourself
>> off
>> from news consumption entirely.
>> News is irrelevant. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12
>> months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a
>> better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career
>> or
>> your business. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people
>> find it very difficult to recognise what's relevant. It's much easier to
>> recognise what's new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental
>> battle
>> of the current age. Media organisations want you to believe that news
>> offers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We
>> get
>> anxious when we're cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news
>> consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the
>> bigger the advantage you have.
>> News has no explanatory power. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will
>> accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The
>> relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow,
>> powerful movements that develop below journalists' radar but have a
>> transforming effect. The more "news factoids" you digest, the less of the
>> big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher
>> economic success, we'd expect journalists to be at the top of the
>> pyramid.
>> That's not the case.
>> News is toxic to your body. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the
>> release
>> of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune
>> system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your
>> body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid
>> levels
>> cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness
>> and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects
>> include
>> fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.
>> News increases cognitive errors. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the
>> words of Warren Buffett: "What the human being is best at doing is
>> interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain
>> intact." News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence,
>> take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. It also exacerbates another
>> cognitive error: the story bias. Our brains crave stories that "make
>> sense"
>> – even if they don't correspond to reality. Any journalist who writes,
>> "The
>> market moved because of X" or "the company went bankrupt because of Y" is
>> an idiot. I am fed up with this cheap way of "explaining" the world.
>> News inhibits thinking. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted
>> time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are
>> like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us
>> shallow thinkers. But it's worse than that. News severely affects memory.
>>
>> There are two types of memory. Long-range memory's capacity is nearly
>> infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery
>> data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in
>> the
>> brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this
>> passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts
>> concentration, it weakens comprehension.
>>
>> Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in
>> Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in
>> a
>> document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has
>> to
>> at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting.
>> News
>> is an intentional interruption system.
>> News works like a drug. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> As stories develop, we want to know how they continue. With hundreds of
>> arbitrary storylines in our heads, this craving is increasingly
>> compelling
>> and hard to ignore.
>>
>> Scientists used to think that the dense connections formed among the 100
>> billion neurons inside our skulls were largely fixed by the time we
>> reached
>> adulthood. Today we know that this is not the case. Nerve cells routinely
>> break old connections and form new ones. The more news we consume, the
>> more
>> we exercise the neural circuits devoted to skimming and multitasking
>> while
>> ignoring those used for reading deeply and thinking with profound focus.
>>
>> Most news consumers – even if they used to be avid book readers – have
>> lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or books. After four, five
>> pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless.
>> It's not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous.
>> It's because the physical structure of their brains has changed.
>>
>> News wastes time.
>>
>> If you read the newspaper for 15 minutes each morning, then check the
>> news
>> for 15 minutes during lunch and 15 minutes before you go to bed, then add
>> five minutes here and there when you're at work, then count distraction
>> and
>> refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every week.
>> Information
>> is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. You are not that
>> irresponsible with your money, reputation or health. Why give away your
>> mind?
>> News makes us passive. <http://www.getnidokidos.com/>
>>
>> News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The
>> daily repetition of news about things we can't act upon makes us passive.
>> It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic,
>> desensitised, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is "learned
>> helplessness". It's a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if
>> news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread
>> disease
>> of depression.
>>
>> News kills creativity.
>>
>> Finally, things we already know limit our creativity. This is one reason
>> that mathematicians, novelists, composers and entrepreneurs often produce
>> their most creative works at a young age. Their brains enjoy a wide,
>> uninhabited space that emboldens them to come up with and pursue novel
>> ideas.
>>
>> I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a
>> writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician,
>> designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of
>> viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to
>> come
>> up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions,
>> don't.
>>
>> Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative
>> journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our
>> institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to
>> arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are
>> good, too.
>> I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and
>> report
>> the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety,
>> deeper thinking, more time, more insights. It's not easy, but it's worth
>> it.
>>
>>
>>
>> *M Junaid Tahir *www.DailyTenMinutes.com
>> <http://www.dailytenminutes.com/>
>>
>> [image: LinkedIn] <http://ae.linkedin.com/in/mjunaidtahir> [image:
>> Twitter] <https://twitter.com/JunaidTahir> [image: Blogger]
>> <http://paradigmwisdom.blogspot.com/> [image: Google Plus]
>> <https://plus.google.com/113376537008636819897> [image: Blog RSS]
>> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/Paradigmwisdom>
>>
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