How to Survive the 2025 News Cycle
Guard Your Attention and Control Your Inputs
Friends:
I’m feeling a little stressed out by world events right now (understatement)—and I suspect that many of you might be, too.
So I wanted to share my own personal plan for how to survive the 2025 news cycle which, according to my almanacs, is going to be a doozy.
I’m guarding my attention
By “guarding my attention,” I mean that I am protecting myself against people and companies that want to hijack my attention for their own benefit. In order to do so . . .
I’m controlling my inputs.
By “controlling my inputs,” I mean that I am making very careful decisions about what types of information and content (and people) I allow into my brain.
I’m doing these things for two reasons. First, our brains are limited in their ability to absorb and process new information. If we try to absorb too much, we end up overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, and, eventually, burned out. (Sound familiar?) And when the news cycle heats up, as it is doing right now, our mental overwhelm gets even worse.
Second, as I write about in The Power of Fun and How to Break Up With Your Phone (revised edition coming out 2/4!), our lives are what we pay attention to.
What I mean is that we only experience what we pay attention to; we only remember what we pay attention to.
That means that, when we make a decision in the moment about what to pay attention to—or what (or who!) we allow into our brains—we are making a broader decision about how we want to live our lives.
I believe that if we want to be mentally healthy over the coming year and have energy to actually do good things for ourselves and the world, we need to do a better job of controlling our inputs and protecting our attention from people who would like to steal it.
Which brings me to the news
The biggest way I’ve been controlling my inputs and guarding my attention over the past few years has been to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend consuming the news.
This isn’t because I don’t care about what is happening in the world. It’s because I’ve realized the following four things:
I have no control over most world events, no matter how upset they make me.
If I spend a lot of time consuming and feeling bad about the news, I’m not actually helping anyone. Instead, I’m making myself miserable and stressed, which in turn makes it less likely that I’ll have any energy to do things that might lead to change on a personal or local level. (It also affects my ability to be a good parent, friend, or spouse.) Limiting my exposure to the news is a way to preserve my energy for things that I do have control over, like how I parent my kid.
There is no such thing as “the news.” What we call “the news” is a curated selection of events chosen for us by algorithms and editors whose primary goal is to get us to keep consuming the news—and the best way to do that is to show us things that make us anxious and scared. It makes us feel like everything is hopeless, when in reality, that’s not the case. Don’t believe me? Listen to the Dalai Llama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Lastly (but importantly!) I’m done with letting people I despise take up space in my brain—or steal my life.
I started limiting my news consumption in 2016, when my husband and I decided to stop listening to the news on the radio in the morning. Our daughter was then an infant, and we realized that listening to a barrage of negative and upsetting news about things that we couldn’t control, first thing in the morning, was not how we wanted to start our days. It stoked our anxieties, and also intruded upon our time with our daughter, which felt like a violation of a sacred space.
I also took news apps off my phone (I’d already turned off their notifications) because I realized I’d developed a habit of scrolling through headlines (and sometimes reading the same articles multiple times, hoping something had changed!) any time I had a few down minutes. I wanted to reclaim those moments for myself, so I controlled my inputs by getting the apps off my phone, and checking the news from an internet browser instead.
It’s now about nine years later and we still do not listen to the news on the radio in the morning (and I still don’t have the apps). It’s made a huge difference in our mental states—and has also protected our daughter from hearing things that she’s not old enough to fully understand or process, let alone do anything about.
Going to the Extreme
More recently, I made a more extreme decision. Like many people, I followed the American election extremely closely last year (one might say, too closely) — and it did not do good things for my mental health. (And oddly, the fact that I stressed about it so much did not seem to have an effect on the outcome — SO WEIRD.)
“It's a burden, being able to control situations with my hyper-vigilance, but it’s my lot in life.” —Tina Fey
And so, on November 6th, I decided to stop checking the news. I did so cold-turkey: I went from probably one to two hours a day on news sites to nothing at all.
I’m not exaggerating: I have not deliberately visited a news site, read a newspaper, or listened to the news for more than two months.
And you know what?
I feel great.
More specifically, I feel calmer than I did before my news fast. I feel more in control (and, oddly, more powerful—there’s something about refusing to let toxic people into my brain that has felt like a small form of resistance). I feel more grounded and more present. I feel like I’m parenting better. And I also have objectively been much more productive. How much so? In addition to juggling a lot of personal and professional responsibilities, I have completed an outline and 2/3 of a book manuscript since November 6th. There is NO WAY I could have done that if I had kept up my former news habits.
There was ONE THING that almost made me break my no-news streak, and it’s not what you’d expect (it had to do with a horse, and doesn’t quite fit with the flow of this post, so I included it as a PS)—keep reading for the story!
Interestingly, I have spoken recently to several friends (none of whom know each other) who have also drastically reduced their news consumption over the past few months, and they all report the same positive effects.
You do what’s right for you
You might think that a total news fast is too much—and for you, that may be true (though I do recommend experimenting with setting some boundaries for yourself, such as not consuming news after 5pm, or perhaps even taking regular weekend breaks to protect your brain and nervous system).
If you’re trying to figure out the right balance for yourself (or justify limiting your exposure), I suggest asking yourself these questions:
Does keeping yourself in a constant state of anxiety help anyone? Is it helping you? Is it helping your children? Is it helping your relationships? Is it helping your community? Is it helping the people whose suffering you are upset about?
Is the world a better place because you have news notifications enabled on your phone?
Is spending hours a week—perhaps hours a day—paying attention to and consuming news about people you detest truly a form of resistance? Or is it actually a waste of your life?
What could you do with the time you’re currently spending consuming news that might actually make a positive difference in someone’s life? (For example, volunteering, or spending more undistracted time with your spouse or child[ren].)
In conclusion . . .
I’m personally not sure how long my total news fast will last. Part of me is considering subscribing to the paper edition of The Economist, which is the intellectual equivalent of eating fiber: it’s something ostensibly good for you that no one particularly enjoys. (The Economist is the opposite of a dopamine trigger – if its editors were in charge of social media, TikTok would collapse on its own.)
Or maybe I’ll ask a GPT to summarize the top ten news stories for me once a week, and only allow it one sentence for each.
For right now, though, I’m fine absorbing the news solely through osmosis. It’s giving me a sense of control and calm during a time when I desperately need it.
If you find this concept intriguing, I encourage you to try some version of it yourself (perhaps even over the next few days!) —and report back on your experience, via the comments section or (for paid subscribers) our community chats.
To scrolling less, living more—and controlling our inputs,
PS: What Almost Broke Me: AKA, The Story of the Stallion
The only thing that almost broke my news fast (BUT DID NOT) had to do with a horse.
More specifically, at some point in December, a friend sent the following gif to a group chat that I’m a part of, with the message, “I just have a feeling we could all benefit from seeing this stallion today.”
My reaction, upon receiving this horse, was as follows:
First, I asked myself, “What could possibly have happened in the world that would make it beneficial for me to look at this stallion right now?”
Next: “I should probably check the news to see what was stallion-worthy—it must be really bad.” (I begin to type the url of a news site.)
I catch myself. No. NO. I am NOT going to let a gif of a horse break my streak!
Instead, I call my husband and ask him, as casually as possible, whether there is any reason he thinks I might need to look into a horse’s eyes right now.
He says no (and has surprisingly few follow-up questions; a strong — and perhaps worrisome — indication that this is not the weirdest question I have asked him during our 15+ years of marriage).
I do not check the news.
The world (and my streak) continues.
I am a long time follower of political news. I am working on what you call "controlling the inputs" post-election because it is a healthy response to Trumpian chaos. HOWEVER. We are coming out of an election that was distorted by deliberate efforts to bamboozle the public, and a long term degradation of the general public's level of attention and information about civics/government/economics/world events/etc. That has resulted in an unprecedented and deeply dangerous corruption of democratic processes (just look at the perversion of the 5th federal circuit & SCOTUS, let alone the role of Elon Musk) that will result in the impoverishment of the American taxpayer and untold misery for many, many people. It strikes me as bordering on irresponsible to say, never mind, just shut down on any news. Yes, it is harder to be cheerful and serene. But please do not encourage people to completely check out. That is not helpful. As citizens, we really do have an obligation to pay attention, take action, and invest our time and energy in (re) building a society and country that we want to inhabit and leave to the next generation. Don't shortchange that.
I was a news junky, for sure, watching MSNBC all evening. Even though it was repetitive, I was addicted. I stopped when Trump was elected. My body actually felt sick when I heard the news of his re-election. I had anxiety that would bring on panic attacks and it was this constant barrage of news. I’m now visiting our town library and spending time reading. I exercise more and feel better. I do read Heather Cox Richardson and it's almost more news than I need. I feel more committed to building more relationships and engaging in community events in my small town. I feel it's more important to be active at the local level. This is a scary time but I need to stay grounded.