Category: People and Society

Why I Stopped Watching the News (And You Should Too)

~ SA Otey

When was the last time you watched the news and said, I’m glad I watched that?

I can’t remember, because the news industry knows human psychology: bad news sells, good news doesn’t.

The Negativity Machine

Here’s a question that changed my perspective entirely: Why does it seem that there’s never any good news?

The answer reveals everything wrong with modern media consumption. News outlets have built their entire business model around exploiting what psychologists call “negativity bias” – our brain’s evolutionary tendency to pay more attention to threats than positive information. It once helped us survive in dangerous environments. Now it’s being weaponized to capture our attention.

“If it bleeds, it leads” isn’t just a catchy newsroom phrase – it’s the fundamental algorithm that determines what information reaches your brain every single day. A school shooting will dominate headlines for weeks, while the millions of students who safely attended school that same day won’t merit a single mention.

The Hidden Cost of Staying “Informed”

I used to take pride in being well-informed. I checked news apps throughout the day, scrolled through headlines during coffee breaks, and fell asleep to the soft glow of breaking news alerts. I thought this made me a more engaged citizen.

Instead, it was slowly poisoning my worldview.

The Mental Health Tax Constant exposure to curated catastrophe creates a persistent low-level anxiety. Your brain, designed to respond to immediate threats, doesn’t distinguish between a news story about violence happening thousands of miles away and actual danger in your environment. The result? Chronic stress about situations you have zero control over.

The Time Thief: Calculate how much time you spend consuming news each day. For most people, it’s between 1 and 3 hours when you include social media news feeds, news apps, and background news consumption. That’s potentially 1,000+ hours per year focused on information that rarely improves your actual decision-making or life outcomes.

The Illusion of Understanding Breaking news culture creates the illusion of being informed while actually making you less knowledgeable. Context gets sacrificed for speed. Nuance disappears in favor of dramatic headlines. Stories get updated or corrected later, but first impressions stick. You end up with strong opinions about complex situations you actually understand very little about.

What You’re Really Missing

When I stopped my daily news consumption, something unexpected happened: I didn’t become less informed about things that mattered. Instead, I gained something more valuable – perspective.

The news industry feeds you the worst 0.01% of human experience and calls it “reality.” But actual reality looks very different:

  • Medical breakthroughs happen regularly
  • Crime rates in most places continue long-term declines
  • People help strangers every single day
  • Communities solve problems collaboratively
  • Technology continues improving lives in countless small ways
  • Most human interactions are neutral to positive
  • Progress on global challenges like poverty and disease continues steadily

None of this makes headlines because gradual improvement isn’t dramatic. But it’s statistically more representative of human experience than the crisis-of-the-day that dominates your news feed.

The Liberation of Stepping Away

This doesn’t mean becoming completely uninformed or ignoring serious issues. It means being intentional about information consumption instead of letting media companies hack your attention for profit.

What I do instead:

  • Read weekly news summaries instead of daily updates
  • Focus on local news where I might actually take action
  • Choose one trusted source rather than consuming from multiple feeds
  • Seek out solution-oriented journalism that covers how problems are being addressed
  • Pay attention to long-term trends rather than daily fluctuations

The unexpected benefits:

  • Significantly reduced anxiety about world events
  • More mental energy for things I can actually influence
  • Better focus and productivity throughout the day
  • More optimistic (and realistic) view of human nature
  • Deeper engagement with my immediate community

Your Attention Is Your Life

Every minute you spend consuming news is a minute you’re not spending on relationships, creativity, learning skills, or engaging with your immediate environment – the places where you actually have agency and influence.

The media industry has convinced you that staying constantly updated on global crises makes you a more informed citizen. In reality, it often makes you a more anxious, distracted, and pessimistic person without meaningfully improving your ability to contribute to solutions.

Your worldview is too important to let it be shaped by algorithms designed to capture attention rather than inform understanding.

The Challenge

Try this experiment: go one week without consuming news. Notice how you feel. Notice what you do with that reclaimed time and mental energy. Notice whether you’re actually less capable of making good decisions about things that matter in your life.

My prediction? You’ll discover that most news consumption is a habit masquerading as a necessity. And breaking that habit might be one of the most liberating things you do this year.

The world isn’t falling apart. You’re just consuming a distorted sample of reality designed to keep you scrolling.

It’s time to stop.

Leave a comment below.

~ SA Otey

At what point do you abandon the idea of leaving a comment? I give up when I see the thread bypass a half dozen. At that point, the probability is high that your comment will get steamrolled by someone’s “superior” opinion. It’s simply not worth the time or effort to debate so that you can prove that you are right. But really, we are more concerned with proving someone wrong in those debates, am I correct? I’m probably wrong, and I’m sure you will debate me on that.

However, It’s quite horrifying (maybe entertaining) to read through a comment chain once it gets over one hundred. You really see the broad spectrum of people’s beliefs and opinions.

Reflecting on Life Before Social Media

~ SA Otey

What does it really mean to go back to the old days? What are the old days and how do you define them?

To me, the old days is life before all the social media and other technologies that are supposed to make our life simpler and easier, but really just complicate things and cause anxiety

Who knows what’s next, because before there was TikTok, there was Instagram, and before Instagram, there was Facebook, and before Facebook, there was MySpace. Before that, all we had were blogs. Then that deviated to Twitter. Twitter was supposed to be microblogging because people didn’t have the attention span to read an entire post. They just wanted to read a few sentences and look at a pretty picture.

Let’s go back to blogs, delete all of your other social media, it’s time.

1. Telegraph (1830s–1840s)

  • Invented by Samuel Morse.
  • Used Morse code to send messages over long distances via wires.
  • Revolutionized long-distance communication.

2. Telephone (1876)

  • Invented by Alexander Graham Bell.
  • Allowed real-time voice communication.
  • Quickly became a staple in homes and businesses.

3. Radio & Broadcast Media (1890s–1920s)

  • Wireless communication began with radio.
  • Became a mass communication tool with news, music, and entertainment.

4. Television (1930s–1950s)

  • Added visuals to broadcast media.
  • Transformed communication into a visual storytelling platform.

5. Email & Early Internet (1960s–1980s)

  • ARPANET led to the birth of email and early internet.
  • Email became a fast and efficient alternative to postal mail.

6. Mobile Phones & SMS (1980s–1990s)

  • Made communication portable.
  • Text messaging (SMS) introduced concise, fast communication.

7. Internet Boom & Instant Messaging (1990s–2000s)

  • Services like AOL, MSN Messenger, and ICQ enabled real-time chatting.
  • The web allowed people to share information instantly worldwide.

8. Social Media (2000s–Present)

  • Platforms like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
  • Transformed communication into a constant, global, multimedia experience.
  • Emphasized user-generated content, connectivity, and community building.

Why We Avoid Eye Contact in Public (And Whether You Should Too)

~ SA Otey

Ever notice how people seem to look everywhere except at each other in public these days? You’re not imagining it—and there are some pretty understandable reasons behind this shift.

The New Social Norms

Smartphones have revolutionized how we navigate public spaces. They’ve become our social shield, giving us a socially acceptable way to appear busy and unavailable. Beyond the technology, our culture has shifted toward more individualistic behavior in public. Where previous generations might have exchanged nods with strangers, many people today prefer moving through public spaces without social obligations.

In crowded urban areas especially, avoiding eye contact serves as a psychological boundary that helps maintain personal space and privacy. For many, it also reduces social anxiety and the pressure to respond appropriately to stranger danger.

So Should You Follow Suit?

The answer depends on your comfort level and the situation. Brief, natural eye contact followed by a slight nod or smile can still be a positive interaction—it acknowledges others’ humanity without being intrusive. Many people actually appreciate this small gesture, particularly in smaller communities or less crowded settings. Deep soul stares not so much.

The key is reading the room. If someone is clearly focused on their phone, wearing headphones, or actively avoiding eye contact, respect their signals. Match the social energy around you while staying true to your own comfort level.

You don’t need to force interactions, but you also don’t need to completely shut down the possibility of brief, respectful human connection if it feels natural to you.

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Should you go to high school reunions?

~ SA Otey

If you have social media then you can get a preview of your high school reunion by scrolling through your feed. Bragging, boasting, deception, and lies. Someone will want to hook you into a multi-level marketing program or sell you some life insurance. You can see how fat/thin or old/young someone looks via the instagrams and facebooks.

If you have a friend you still talk to from your high school, be thankful. That’s all you need. You don’t need to go digging up the memories and run into someone who wanted to fight you 30 years ago. If you are part of the Hillbilly Ethnicity you know this to be true. If you must go, then wait until year 40 or 50 and let the crowd thin a little.

Why You Shouldn’t Be Yourself in Friendships

~ SA Otey

Making friends is an important aspect of life. Having a social support system can bring joy, companionship, and a sense of belonging. However, having too many friends can be annoying. They suck the life out of you by asking for favors. They are never there for you in return. So choose wisely.

Don’t be yourself: Be fake and phony. People say they appreciate honesty. However, when they ask you a question and don’t like your answer, their ego can’t take it. Then they will tell others that you are mean and hateful.

Don’t be open to new experiences others are trying to lure you into. This includes any multi-level marketing scheme such as cleaning products, essential oils, or something that will fix all your problems. These people will be your friends as long as you keep purchasing from them. Once they bleed you dry of money, they will discard you. It will be like throwing away an old television set with a broken CRT and no remote control.

Be “sort of” approachable: Don’t smile, but smirk, and don’t make eye contact. You don’t want people trying to create small talk.

Don’t post anything on Social media. This ties back to being fake and phony. If you must engage online, only show your highlight reel.

Volunteer: Volunteering is a great way to give back to your community. It can also help you meet new people. Find a cause you’re passionate about and look for volunteer opportunities in your area.

People love talking about themselves. Being a good listener is a great way to make friends. So try to interrupt them often about how whatever they’ve done, you’ve done it before and better.

In conclusion, making friends requires effort and a bit of courage. Do not be cowardly. Do not do the bare minimum to maintain friendships. If you put in the effort, you’d be surprised how many people will eventually stay with you.

How to lose friends and disengage people

~ SA Otey

Loan them money

A Wise person once told me that if you loan someone money, don’t expect a payback. I’ll go as far as to say you’ll never see that person again. Sometimes it’s a good trade-off if the person is really annoying and causes you anxiety. That’s the best money you’ll ever spend.

Change your religion

The more extreme the switch, the quicker you will lose people. No, atheism is not the opposite of Christianity. Atheism is giving up a higher consciousness and culture and relying on scientists. Scientists change their opinions on new information and course correct when the data leads down the wrong paths. It’s basically making yourself a God. Satanism is the opposite of Christianity. Choose wisely.

Change your politics

Centrists have lots of friends, the far left and far right do not so much. You would be surprised how much far left and far right have in common so pick something mid-spectrum on the opposite side.

Don’t show empathy

When someone asks how you’re doing just tell them fine and be done with it. Don’t tell them any of your problems. They can’t handle it and will distance themselves from you until you figure out the solution on your own.

Don’t text, post, email, call

Just stop communicating. Let the other person make all the attempts to get in contact with you. Make your responses shorter and shorter until they get to “Haha” and “Yep“. Eventually, they will give up because you do not reciprocate. Sometimes it takes people a long time to get the hint.

What do Democrats and Republicans Believe? Part II: Economy

~ SA Otey

get it @ redbubble.com

Democrats:

Favor policies that promote economic equality, such as progressive taxation, increasing the minimum wage to drive the cost of goods and services up and customer service down to nonexistent. Expanding social welfare programs like abortion healthcare and brainwashing education.

Republicans:

Advocate for lower taxes so you are not working more and getting paid less. Deregulation to stimulate economic growth, and free-market principles with minimal government intervention.

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What do Democrats and Republicans Believe? Part I: Ideological Spectrum

~ SA Otey

https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/51556654-fedup-with-politics-in-2024

Democrats:

Also called the “left” of the political spectrum. Emphasize social welfare programs at the expense of the taxpayer turning the safety net into a hammock. Environmental protection except for their private Gulfstream jets to attend climate change summits. Healthcare reform so your benefits are decreased to fund their premium plans. Progressive taxation, taking more of your money to fund government programs.

Republicans:

Positioned on the “right” of the spectrum. Advocate for limited government so you can mind your own business with little intervention in the economy. Lower taxes so you can keep more of what you earn so you can donate generously and not against your will to entities you disagree with. More deregulation so you can drive the car you enjoy without worrying about destroying countries mining for battery parts. Traditional values so you can keep our society from getting out of control with pagan ideologies.

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Give Us Feedback About a Facebook Feature

~ SA Otey

There are a couple of new features that I would like to suggest to enhance the Meta Facebook experience

People you may know

When you remove that person from the notification, may it never show up again

Reels

Allow us to permanently disable or hide reels

Marketplace Verification

Require a payment method signup and rating system so that we don’t get a constant stream of “Is this available” or “Can you text me, I’m not active on Facebook”.

Subscription

Everyone makes you pay to not see advertisements, so why not Facebook?

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