Adults should actually know what’s going on in the world?

[Dailywalk]

Is it important to keep up to date on ‘current affairs’. What would you think if someone said they’d rather be unaware of what is going on in the news. If it’s something that’s really important and will affect them then they will find out eventually. It doesn’t change to know al the ‘details’

Interested to know what people think. Is it important to be aware of what’s going on in the news?

Don't agree - I don't watch the news.

I subscribe to a few positive news pages I follow on Insta.

Not news as you know it , and I don't think watching the news is very healthy.

No, it's not important. Many things reported in the news cause untold stress, fear and anxiety and can cause serious damage to mental health. When I don't read the news I am endlessly happier! The things reported don't make any difference to my life and I'd not even be aware of many of the problems I've literally lost sleep over, if I'd not read them in the news!

I don't have to immerse myself in news to know who to vote for. When there is a local or general election I research the candidates, but that doesn't mean I need to read 'what has bojo done now' every morning. I actually don't need to ever read the news to see some of this governments failings. I see it at work when we can't get certain items due to Brexit or transit issues, at my kids school which changes its policy nearly every day and emails me to let me know, at the chemists when they are out of LFTs and some of the drugs I needed to buy due to transit issues, in the supermarket when there is hardly any fresh fruit or veg or dishwasher salt, when I try to find a dentist and there is none taking NHS patients and when I try to get a GP appointment but they aren't doing those face to face and can only spare 5 minutes due to staff shortages. I see the failings of this government everywhere. I don't need the guardian or the telegraph or the daily fail to tell me who to vote for in the next GE. I just need to vote to get that clown and his bunch of sycophants out. Otherwise what's it going to tell me? Evil people doing evil things, murder and abuse and war and disease and famine, plus a whole load of fear mongering and click bait.

If anything I think people who rely too heavily on the news, especially only from one news source, can become a lot more blinkered to the world than people who rely on their own experiences to guide them. They let the news tell them who to vote for or not and who to hate. The news will tell us to hate our neighbours, but if instead of trusting the news to tell you who to hate or not and who to fear or not, actually talking to people you realise we are all just people. The left, the right, whether LGBTQ or +, regardless of citizenship status, race, religion, economic status, people are just people just living their lives the best they know how. Politics is so divisive, when really it comes down to this. Are you happy with how it is? Then vote for what is. Do you want change? Then vote for something else. No need to watch or read the news to know that much.

Not everything is click bait. Part of being an informed adult is being able to judge the credibility of the news source. It is depressing that some people just prefer to wear blinkers because they won't use their brains to seek out reliable journalism.

I read the FT, The Week and The Economist. It is not minute-by-minute news nor on any newsfeed but it gives me a good idea of what is going on in the world at any one time.

Sure, a lot of the news is upsetting. But I agree with the poster that it is important to know that terrible crimes, injustices and atrocities are being committed around the world. I try not to read the details. Since I have had children, I can get really disturbed by individual accounts. It is ok to take a break from news from time to time but not ok to be permanently ignorant because that makes you susceptible to fake news and stupidity in general.

I don't need to know that energy prices are doubling again or that Putin is about to invade Ukraine

Really? You’re not interested in the fact that your household bills may go up significantly and you might want to plan for that?

Such an arrogance to thinking you are above the news. A privileged position to be in.

It is indeed truly privileged and IMO selfish to live in ignorance. That is how history repeats itself.

@HelloDulling

Such an arrogance to thinking you are above the news. A privileged position to be in.

Literally no one has said that though

Looking further back, I spent a fair chunk of time not knowing the news because of having two jobs to stay afloat and being permanently knackered, another chunk with illness.

So probably many of us have been below the news at times.

Again it depends on definitions of news. What one person needs to know can be totally different than what the person next door needs to know.

To answer your question, yes, I think it's really important for adults to know what's going on in the world. I watch lots of news on TV, and read a variety of newspapers online. I always have the news on when I'm getting up, having breakfast before work, often in the evenings and at bedtime.....

It is difficult to gain a balanced perspective because every type of news coverage has an 'angle' and a bias, I think it's important to realise this. To counteract the bias I tend to use multiple sources for my news...I watch BBC, ITV and Channel 4 but also RT, Al-Jazeera, Sky.... I want to know what is happening in the whole world, not just the BBC's take on Boris' parties (!!) Channel 4 has some good news documentaries but world news is better covered by Sky and particularly Al-Jazeera, who often cover the Middle East, African and South American news stories which our own TV channels don't even follow. DW is German and can be watched online and gives a different take on European news, it's also possible to watch RUV online which is Icelandic and covers news from a Scandinavian perspective, as does NRK Nyheter (Norwegian).

I think to be a global citizen these days requires us to be informed. It means knowing what others in the world think, even if we don't agree with it at all. For instance, RT is a Russian news source and obviously gives a completely different perspective/argument for troops amassing outside Ukraine (or any other story which involves Russia). They are also heavily biased against the USA. I seldom agree with their views but I am interested to hear their "take" and how they justify their actions.

I'm not very interested in showbiz stories and I ignore social media stuff about celebrities, I am more interested in national and international politics, climate change, humanitarian stories, science breakthroughs, travel, environment.....

Everyone on MumsNet appears to hate the Daily Mail but I read it online, alongside the Times, FT and Guardian. Each paper gives a very different perspective on the same story and somewhere in the middle is the balanced view. The Daily Mail is sensationalist and often spouts tripe, but it has a readership of around 2 million (I believe) and therefore I read it more to understand what a section of our population is digesting every day, and which probably helps explain why certain people hold certain views/opinions. The same could be said of papers like the Times and the Guardian.

The 24 hour news cycle combined with click bait has destroyed news. We now have badly researched opinion pieces pretending to be news, because everything has to be published ASAP to stay ahead of the competition and get the most traffic.

I used to think I was well informed because I kept up with what the UK news showed me - I was just a different type of ignorant. When was the last time the BBC reported anything on the treatment of the Uighur in China? As far as I can see from searching the app they gave a damn for a few weeks from Feb to Mar 2021 and nothing since. Syria? Libya? Have all these places resolved their issues or have they just fallen out of fashion?

Plus the level of reporting is embarrassing- most UK news articles are so incredibly surface level, it's like they think we can't handle anything other than a personal lens story. Even Radio 4 now just wants a quick 10 second sound bite of two sides arguing or a "gotcha" than actual policy analysis.

Oh and let's not forget the death of local news outlets where people actually have a chance of making a difference.

What can I do about Boris until he's kicked out or the next election rolls round? Nothing except maybe complain to friends or rant online. Ukraine, even less of a chance. But knowing the local council have decided to sell off parkland, or the bus company are stopping late night travel leaving shift workers stranded, or any matter of minor local events that have a massive impact on people's day to day lives - that I could do something about but sadly my local paper died a death before I even moved to the area.

I keep up with the news but what I don’t need is a load of opinions or unpacking from journalists. “Russia on the verge of invading Ukraine”, “PM suspected to have attended illegal house parties” and “Price Andrew in court over sex allegations” is generally enough, though clickbait headlines annoy me too because once you get reading it becomes clear the headline is inaccurate. That’s why I like radio news bulletins, key information is provided and it doesn’t go on forever.

l have zero interest in the news, havent bothered with it for years and life still goes on. l didn 't lose a wink of sleep over Covid, because l refuse to be manipulated by the fear and scare mongering tactics of the media.

I read the "news" mainly here and on Reddit. There's usually some kind of discussion about them which is more informative than the (inevitably) biased sources themselves - I like it when views are discussed and challenged, and you hear different or additional information.

I don't need all the endless negative stuff I have no control over - it used to stress me out and now it doesn't. I have several degrees so am confident in my ability to research and synthesise information, but I'm long done trying to know and control everything now, I just try to live.

It's disturbing that so many here would happily remove other people's right to vote, just because they're not One Of Them. I'd suggest that engaging with the news every day isn't doing you a lot of good if this is your sort of attitude.

This is exactly why we have such an uneducated electorate who vote on concepts like Brexit. Obviously it’s all depressing and there’s a point in rowing back if you cannot bear to listen to it
But
You don’t have to be “steeped in misery” as somebody put it- watching the news once a day or having quick read on a website is enough. This is the world that your children are going to be navigating - I don’t understand how you can’t be invested. I don’t watch the news daily myself - probably every couple of days and definitely never in front of my children because it’s all so depressing but it just takes ten minutes a day to be informed of the basics.

I don't think you need to watch the news anymore to know what's going on, it's everywhere, Google, MN, all sorts of places, without reading a newspaper, or watching tv at 6pm.

I follow the news closely and always have. Local, national and international. I can distinguish between news and non-news, bias, spin and propaganda. I also don't let it impact me as so very little of it affects me and certainly wouldn't affect me less or more if I know or didn't know. I don't care if others follow it or not and I don't believe it makes me even remotely better or more informed to waste an hour or more of my day on it. I can't possibly know all the news about everything everywhere anyway and nothing really changes in my life day to day anyway, no matter who, what, where, when or why. I also spend a iot of time delving into history. I'm generally well informed but totally unengaged.

Meanwhile, I voted for Brexit and for the current government. Which doesn't seem to fit with some people's ideas about news followers on here...

It's s pity we don't have journalists of the quality and integrity of Halberstam and Sheehan and Arnett and Galloway these days. If you want to know what good news reporting should be, read William Prochnau's 'Once upon s distant war'. Then tell me that you believe the news actually informs you...

@HelloDulling

Such an arrogance to thinking you are above the news. A privileged position to be in.

I don't think I'm above it, I genuinely can't take in a lot of information at a time, I struggle to stay focused on one article never mind several. Being autistic is no privilege. I'm not arrogant either, I would like to be more able, but 40+ years in I still can't do it.

I will often say to some other people “oh, I don’t watch the news” which is technically true (I don’t watch TV news) but actually means “I don’t want to get into a debate about this” and is the quickest way of shutting down someone who just wants to browbeat me with their opinion.

I do however keep up to date with current affairs - I have BBC headline notifications on my phone, glance at what’s trending on Twitter, look at what’s being discussed here, have other news apps available. I try to read a range of sources to counteract media bias. I have a couple of similarly-informed friends with whom I do enjoy chewing the fat over what’s going on in the world.

I do go through spells when I reduce the amount of news I voluntarily take on board, because relentless bad news can be draining and have an adverse affect on my MH, so sometimes I concentrate on looking inwards at my sphere of family, friends, work, caring responsibilities etc rather than looking outwards at the wider world.

It's disturbing that so many here would happily remove other people's right to vote, just because they're not One Of Them. I'd suggest that engaging with the news every day isn't doing you a lot of good if this is your sort of attitude

I wouldn't remove the right to vote from anyone but why should the future of the country/world be decided by people too stupid to take any notice of what is going on in the world and incredibly, think that is a virtue?

Its so easy to remove our right to vote if we make the wrong decisions at the ballot box, as the last 2 centuries has shown us.

@1dayatatime

I fully agree that you don't need to do obsessively follow the news of which famous person has died etc but I strongly believe that you do need to be fully aware and know about the big ticket issues- currently IMO Boris and enquiry, Ukraine, inflation, tension with China etc.

I often hear comments like "I don't watch / read the news - it's so depressing" etc. The danger with this approach is that you will find out about the big events eventually but with no idea about how they came about.

This then makes you very susceptible to conspiracy theories or populist politics to explain the big events leading for example to uninformed voting decisions. Because a simple (but false) explanation is always easier to take on board than understanding a more complex but accurate explanation.

^THIS.

The number of people on this thread who don't care - some of whom seem to be almost proud to not care - about what is going on in the world is truly depressing. It can potentially lead to situations where "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. And the reason they do nothing is because they didn't know what was happening until it's too late.

And whilst I agree that the risk of something truly evil happening in the UK is probably remote, this does not absolve us of the need to stay informed and make informed decisions when we vote.

I agree it can be overwhelming at times but one thing my mum said when I was younger and upset about a news article has always stuck with me 'if these people have had to live through this then the least we can do is know about it'. I think it is incredibly important to have a basic understanding of the political landscape of the world as well as hearing about the struggles other countries/people/communities are going through even if it doesn't effect you and you can't help. But I also think there is a limit, and it also helps to read 'positive' news stories to balance out.

I would definitely think less of someone if they were totally oblivious to current events. Sure, most of the news has little hearing on your everyday life, but I think it suggests an excessively incurious nature if you don’t have a clue what’s going on beyond your immediate routine.