News Is Fast Food. I Despise Both.
Experimental non-canon mini essay. Read it if you’re curious—skip otherwise :)
I’ve lived my whole life without seriously reading, watching, or listening to The News.
I’ve tried—really. Society kept nudging me to plug in. “You have to stay informed,” they said, as if it were a civic duty or moral law. But each time, I bounced off. Not out of resistance—just disinterest. It never lit anything up in me.
That surprises a lot of people. Most feel a natural pull toward headlines—drawn in by urgency, identity, and something to say at lunch. But not me. Not because I’m above it, but because—looking back—I think my curiosity was simply tuned elsewhere. The latest crisis, the newest scandal, the next big thing—it never felt relevant to the life I was actually living. It wasn’t clarity. It wasn’t connection. It was noise.
At first, I thought there was something wrong with me. But over time, I started to understand what was going on beneath the surface.
You see, what we call “news” today isn’t really about knowing. It’s about reacting. It’s the mental equivalent of junk food—fast, addictive, and empty.
When I say “news,” I mean the daily delivery of current events in condensed form. Whether it’s newspapers, TV, Twitter, podcasts, radio, or push notifications—the format stays the same: compressed updates, framed for urgency, engineered for repetition.
The problem isn’t just the sheer volume. It’s the principal design.
The News is built to trigger your amygdala—the brain’s ancient alarm system. It feeds three primal urges: the need to detect danger, the hope of exploiting opportunity, and the desire to trade gossip for social capital.
A war. A market crash. A scandal. A trending outrage. It’s a never-ending saber-toothed tiger behind a glass screen, tricking your body into stress—even when nothing’s actually happening to you. No wonder it’s sticky for some. It’s not made to inform you. It’s made to hook you.
So, why didn’t I fall for it—even though I tried?
Here’s the thing: I’ve always been more drawn to patterns than updates. To root causes, not breaking developments. I don’t care what just happened—I want to understand why things happen in the first place. The News trades in immediacy. I’m wired for depth. That mismatch meant it never landed. It didn’t trigger urgency in me. It didn’t give me clarity or meaning. It just felt like noise—always moving, never arriving.
And you know what? I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything essential. Sure, I’ve been left out of debates about elections in countries I’ll never visit. I’ve missed the name of the latest billionaire scandal. But I haven’t missed truth. And I haven’t missed life.
Instead, I’ve had space for something deeper. I care about timeless questions. Conversations that light me up. Ideas that last longer than a 24-hour cycle. I want to be engaged, not inflamed. Grounded, not reactive.
And let me be clear: I’m not advocating ignorance. I’m advocating discernment. That is arguably what journalism should be. In theory, providing news to citizens is based on a noble cause—a search for truth, not unlike science. It aims to help us orient ourselves in an ever-changing world: To alert (so we can act).To connect (so we can belong). To divert (so we can learn and be entertained). All of that is part of the good life.
But in most daily news, those ideals have been washed away by capitalism—except, maybe, for the last one. Diversion has taken exclusive precedence.
We are shaped by what we consume—mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And if you care about becoming a clear thinker, you need to treat your information diet the same way you’d treat your physical diet.
And that means: Choose nutrient-dense information. Not empty calories.
Not just slower formats—because even books and essays can be filled with junk—but sources with deeper intentions. Content created not to trigger or sell, but to illuminate and endure.
Here’s what I do instead of reading The News:
I read timeless books (the older, the better).
I write essays, like this one, to contemplate and process what I’ve read.
I follow essayists and thinkers I trust.
I use an RSS reader (Feedly) to turn push into pull—no algorithm, no outrage tuning.
I occasionally catch a monthly summary of what happened, if I feel like it.
I talk to real people and follow curiosity where it leads.
This isn’t abstinence—it’s curation. I’m building my own information sanctuary. And it’s a hell of a lot more empowering than checking the headlines for the fifth time today.
Because the more news you consume, the less space you have for actual thought. It doesn’t make you smarter—it makes you scattered. It doesn’t connect you—it polarizes you. It doesn’t orient you—it spins you.
You can’t serve the world when your nervous system is fried.
So give yourself the gift of slow information. Feed your mind the way you’d feed someone you love.
And for the love of clarity—
Don’t read The News. The News is fast food. And we should despise both.
This was a rare experimental essay. Please don’t unsubscribe because of it. If you liked it, here are my other non-canon essays:
