Will it Improve your Life?

This last weekend I was the victim of news overdose as delivered to me by my preferred tech blogs and news aggregates.¹ If there’s an equivalent for obesity of the mind, this is it. My subconscious has turned gluttonous, ready to spew out any irrelevant fact that it may have retained. Looking back I can barely remember a story or meme that was worthwhile or interesting beyond the news that Amazon will try shipping stuff with drones. While it’s not like I feel like I didn’t do anything worthwhile this weekend, it’s that I could have done much less of things that have no overall effect on the quality of my life.

Catching myself reading Buzzfeed’s “The 40 Greatest Dog GIFs Of All Time” inspired this post. The futility of it all struck me while watching #39 “diving corgi“. All of this is the same, and none of it is improving your life. That immediate thought was referring to the post, I had seen plenty of dog gifs before. Then the rest of it hit me too, I get nothing from news.

All of this is the same, and none of it is improving your life.

Sure there are important bits, but checking the same sites five times a day just so you can be the most caught up with the news from California isn’t worth it. It was the TV-esque crap my parents had told me about, it’s everywhere, constantly churning out new stuff, and I’m addicted to it. I thought reading more would be of some benefit, not this kind. I feel like I’ve read the first chapter in a book twenty times now, it never really changes.

It’s decent journalism usually, I just don’t need it 24/7. There are a lot of books I haven’t read that are in the mind of popular culture. I think I’ll take spend some time finishing up those instead of reading “Why Your Startup is Dead if You Can’t Enchant”.