media rules for living through the trump administration (and beyond)
07 Feb 2017hey, what are your habits around media consumption these days? how do you keep your news media consumption mindful and productive?
a few people have asked this question (or some version of it) in the past few days. that’s generally a sign to me that it’s time to write a post about it.
so in these literally crazy days (aka the trump administration), i’ve picked up a few habits that i think have been helping. most of them i’ve heard about from friends or podcasts (real good stuff on show about race) i listen to.
1. no social media in bed
no social media within one hour of bed. that means one hour after waking up and one hour before going to bed. almost every tool i use on my phone is social in some way these days (because that’s where the growth is for like every company). so this means no twitter, facebook (including messenger), instagram, or scruff. there are others but those are the biggies.
and the reason to avoid them is because i don’t want the fast af news media cycle deciding my headspace at the beginning and end of my days. a while ago i wrote about how quickly these technologies are coming and how we literally haven’t had time to thinking critically about how they’re changing our lives. well, maybe society as a whole hasn’t thought that through, but i’m starting with the rebalancing right now. sometimes i call this the digital pullout. :’D
2. 1 hour maximum of reading articles and social media time (combined)
yes i have a timer for this. mostly i just use the read time estimator on [https://www.highly.co/]. sometimes i use my phone’s timer. either way, the point here is not to be consumed by news media, which is literally always being produced.
3. prioritize writers/content makers who are impacted by the subject matter of the article
this helps me filter down what i should read.
4. read actual books.
i read an article a while ago (can’t find it) about how reading articles and blogs supports convergent thinking while reading books supports divergent thinking. in times like these where news media and social media outlets all want more our time, it’s easy to only read things you agree with. reading books (depending on how you choose them) keeps me exposed to new ideas and people.
resource
- this is a somewhat random article (got lucky with google… also ironic lol) about why readings books is good. https://mic.com/articles/99408/science-has-great-news-for-people-who-read-actual-books#.jKRaIlmqQ
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