To be want to stop reading the news

[southlondonluxe]

Every time I read the news lately it just seems more and more depressing

Used to be largely foreign policy that was the downer but now everything going to pot in a big way here too

• NHS back door privatisation
• Schools back door privatisation
• And now the infrastructure act (meaning that any public land can be sold off to whoever with no consultation or accountability (see www.thecanary.co/2016/03/25/16830/ ) )

AIBU to my children by wanting to just bury my head in the sand about it all! The future looking properly sh£t unless you're already a garillionaire

You're an adult? Deal with it

Yabu

No, you don't bury your head on the sand. You think about what you can do to change things.

I'm with you OP. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.

Don't bury your head in the sand. Ignorance isn't bliss. It's important to be aware of what's going on.

I research and analyse news content for a living and it's so utterly grim at times but I'm so glad I know what on earth is going on in society and the world.

Cross post grilled. Terrible timing on my part.

Nova but does it frighten you, or are you 'hardened' to it?

You're an adult? Deal with it

Thank God not everyone has this ^^ attitude.

Sorry you're feeling overwhelmed OP. I have a friend who suffers from anxiety and she find the constant stream of 'bad news' hard to handle.

Bury your head for a bit, then get it out again and find out if there's anything you can do help any of the causes you feel strongly about.

I've never really thought about it grilled.

Have been known to have a wee cry on my lunch break after a terrible event.

Consider myself well versed in politics but also very cynical. I always vote but find it a lot harder to choose these days as a result of information overload I think.

And have no faith whatsoever in an industry I spent years training to be a part of (journalism/media).

I know what you mean but it's not the political stories that get me as I feel like we all have some power to try to change that - it's all the horrific crimes in the world, particularly those involving children. Many a time I've had to leave my desk to compose myself in the toilets after reading something particularly evil someone has done to a child, often a parent. It terrifies me there are people like that in the world.

I don't watch the news either, for all the reasons you mentioned. I read the newspaper online but only selected articles and definitely none about terrorism. You can choose what you consume and you can definitely ignore the news and still be informed about certain things.some things I just don't want to know about.

It's the terrorism stuff that's getting to me. I feel like we are sitting ducks in London and it scares me v much indeed

Pressed post too soon -

And the news from other countries where things have already happened is so tragic and worrying.

YANBU. I cannot stand to watch the news but I hate being ignorant. My parents were talking about Srebrenica and I'd purposefully kept myself ignorant about it so I decided I should really be an informed adult and find out more.

This is what I found out. 8000 men and boys were executed. Their mothers and sisters were raped. Mothers had their sons murdered, throats slit, beheaded, whilst crying in their laps.

I couldn't carry on reading so looked for a good news story. Nothing to be found, except that a man was convicted for murdering 2 women, one in front of her children and a Muslim shopkeeper was stabbed in the head by an extremist Muslim for wishing his Christian customers Happy Easter.

All this against the backdrop of suicide bombers and the Brussels attacks.

So YANBU. I can't watch the News because I am powerless to do anything about these atrocities. It makes me so angry. I feel if I continue to watch I will hate both religion and men and I don't want to hate either of those things because that isn't fair. But I cannot understand how mankind can be so evil.

Interesting thread.

It's the personal tragedies - the pier car deaths, that lovely young Scottish girl Paige, the twin toddlers in the garden pond, the siblings who died in Brussels - that get to me, very badly, to the extent that I have a knot in my stomach.
So, I don't obsess much about political topics like those mentioned in the OP, but I identify with the sentiment.