Check the news once a day

Limiting doom-scrolling opens up time to actually make the world a better place

Like many people, I spent late February and March of 2020 constantly refreshing the news. The new coronavirus was spreading rapidly, first in faraway places, and then closer to home. As the kids’ schools shut down and we were no longer going anywhere, staying on top of the headlines felt like one of the few things it was possible to do.

But at some point in all this, I had a realization. My checking the news frequently wasn’t changing anything. There often weren’t any new developments. I was just wasting my time and making myself feel more anxious in the process.

So I adopted a new rule: Check the news once a day. This is enough to be an informed citizen, but will keep any doom-scrolling tendencies under control.

The virtues of a newspaper

If you think about it, once upon a time people could only check the news once or so a day anyway. Old-fashioned print newspapers arrived at some point during the day, summarizing whatever had happened in the last 24 hours. The rise of broadcast news meant you could read a paper in the morning and watch the news in the evening, but even so, the available space was limited.

With 24-7 news channels, and then constantly updated websites and social media sites, this all changed. And yet if you, personally, cannot do much about the war in Ukraine (except donate to relief organizations) at 9 a.m., you still cannot do much about it at 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:15 a.m., and so forth. Constant checking just increases the anxiety.

Influence what we can

So, as world news continues to be grim, and as the US heads into what is no doubt going to be a fraught election season, I think this limited news diet strategy continues to have some merit. Choose one or two trusted sources of news, and choose a time to check. I like to read the print Wall Street Journal (I know, I’m old fashioned) and check the digital New York Times at some point after I’ve finished my major priorities for the day.

You might even be strategic and choose a news-checking time that corresponds to when you are going to do something that will put you in a more constructive mood. Maybe you read headlines for 10 minutes before meeting a work friend for a mid-afternoon walk.

Then — and this is the challenge for all of us — we can use the time we would have spent doom-scrolling to make the corners of the world we do influence better. Most of us can’t do much about faraway conflicts, but we can check in on friends who are going through a rough time. We can volunteer with local non-profits, vote (and encourage our friends to do so), and build strong civic organizations. All of those things take more effort than reading a website, but in the long run they’re more rewarding.