Reining in internet use - toxic information flow

I have been about 6 months with no news app and checking it once per day only on a web browser. Well over a year since I quit Facebook and I don’t miss that at all. Stopped watching majority political content on YouTube.

Feel almost cleansed from having to shoulder a huge amount of worry and catastrophising.

Sometimes is best not to know the ins and outs of other people’s lives, what horrible things the news makes people hooked on and drastically extracted myself from being pulled into the extremes on all sides

The world is far more complicated these days

In the early 2000’s I think things were not as bad as they are now

Technology has moved as quick as it always has but I find a lot of this on demand information for me at least creates more problems than it solves

I am all for a simple as possible life and don’t have the bandwidth to worry on behalf of all the toxic ■■■■ that goes on

We become desensitised and that is not good

My paranoia and anxiety are still there but it doesn’t invade my mind unless in public

My personal space is more of a sanctuary now and dropping this live feed of information has helped my mind not being in a constant heightened state

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I say let other people worry about it. Weve got enough problems with our mental health to shoulder any of it.

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Its like people at work going on and on worrying about tarrifs.
The tarrifs will either happen or they wont whether you worry about it or not. The worrying doesnt produce anything helpful.
Instead they could think on just cutting back on buying 7 dollar starbucks coffees :sweat_smile:

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I agree @LevelJ1

Took me a long time to realise this but I hope it’s just another increment towards working out how to manage stress

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I think when I first read that the news was bad for schizophrenics was in Fuller’s “Surviving Sz.”

Makes sense as it’s all mostly negative shite to fuel people’s paranoia about society.

I do my best to avoid the news. Especially local news that can make me scared of my own neighborhood, when in reality I live in a relatively low crime area.

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It’s not even like anyone tries to promote good stories these days

There are great things and bad things going on

Only being spoon fed the bad news is not a nice thing to inflict on anybody whether they’re cognisant of it or not

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I know, right?

Like the news is never going to say that a heroin addict just got out of federal prison and turned his life around and now runs a cat adoption agency. LOL.

They will tell you though about the plentiful addicts robbing people in your neighborhood and how they apparently want all of your nice stuff. :roll_eyes:

@LevelJ1 Some people are driving themselves crazy over the tariffs. I think below it all it’s just another spy vs. spy game. Some countries want to be the dominant force. It’s all bollocks as our UK friends say. :laughing:

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I need to quit the news. I just read it out of boredom but it has negative effects. Even stuff like tech news all they talk about is Trump these days.

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I gave up my political interests in pursuit of sanity and happiness. It helped a lot. I fairly recently deleted my Facebook and I feel a huge relief from that. I found myself feeling jealous of others loves they displayed on FB and some people have used it in a toxic manner towards me (such as deleting me during a small argument or without even anything I did wrong) . It got too much after someone very close to me deleted me because she disagreed with a personal decision I made, even though I ended up changing my mind, she didn’t even address me about it and just deleted me. It felt pretty toxic . I don’t have nearly as many people reaching out to me and I prefer it this way. I want a small circle

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You should definitely give it a try @Mars

I certainly don’t regret it.

Glad making those changes has helped you @Moon

Don’t think it’s easy as everyone pretty much has a significant online presence

This site I do not have a problem with as there are rules and they actually get enforced

Much of the internet is like the Wild West

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News is too distracting. I can feel it’s tug and pulls me, just like social media. So I stay away. I feel relief when I’m not around those kinds of thoughts. It makes the life I’m struggling with even worse.

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I wanted to make this thread as I credit these changes with my mind settling down better

Definitely a good thing to try at least to avoid being permanently online and distracted

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I hope I can follow in your footsteps. I’m trying to get there.
I mean that for real

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I have had to stop looking at the news this past week. It’s too much.

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Don’t blame you at all.

Maybe it might be worth taking more of a break?

Now I look one time per day when before I was following it constantly

Deleting the news apps helped a lot

One time a day is too much.

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I have somewhat compromised my position on this

It was more than a week at a time when I first dropped it

My problem was it was very obsessive following everything all the time

I am comfortable that I am less hooked on it now