I am a news junkie. I admit it. Growing up I read the newspaper, watched the news, pretended to be a newscaster. As a teacher I have always advocated that our students need to watch or read the news so they can become more globally aware. Today I avoided the news, however.
No CNN, no Sunday morning news, no radio updates, no 6 o’clock local, no national news, no browsing MSN’s headlines….nothing. In fact, I even looked the other way as my path crossed by Sunday newspaper stands. I actually avoided reading headlines in those stands.
I’d like to make this a longer experiment. I believe we are inundated with media and tragedy. Wars, crime, deaths, bad behavior by celebrities….it all can perpetuate an attitude of fear, anxiety, and impending doom and gloom. It’s good to be worldly wise. It’s good to be globally aware. It is not good to live in a state of fear. I believe too much news can do that. It would be interesting to see if a week without the news at all would make a difference in my mindset. Certainly, my hypothesis is it would. However, just one day is enough to know that I don’t really miss seeing the news. And I don’t feel ignorant from the lack of one day’s news reports.
I’m a news junkie as well. This is an interesting experiment, let us know how it goes!