No News

I’ve been on a pretty hot streak with the whole no news thing recently, so much so I almost got away without finding out that Prince Philip had died. Other than that, I am blissfully unaware of what is going on in the world, the ongoing pandemic notwithstanding, and even then, in Guernsey it is easy to forget the situation elsewhere. It wasn’t even a deliberate choice to stop reading the news, and instead came about from trying to get into the habit of not mindlessly going to websites, instead asking myself why I was going there and how I thought it was likely to make me feel. The local and national news were the first to fall. I know I’m privileged to be in a position where I can simply stick my fingers in my ears, hum loudly and pretend the outside world isn’t happening, but I think it also says something that I stopped consuming it once I realised I never expected it to make me feel anything positive. Surely most other people must feel the same? Sometimes I think it absolutely brings awareness to an important issue, but I still feel that it is largely depressing without being especially relevant to the lives of its consumers.

I feel like I’m probably being naive about it all, but having reread Aaron Swartz’s old blog post on the topic, I’m grateful that at least somebody I respected agreed with me.