News avoiders

More and more people are deliberately avoiding news reports as they find them too depressing and alarming. They're actively looking for alternative media content that's more cheerful and optimistic.

At the start of this year, 39 per cent of people questioned said they sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29 per cent in 2018. They're overwhelmed by rolling news alerts and commentary, much of it horrific or worrying.

I must say my own attitude to the news is somewhat ambivalent. I want to know what's going on in the outside world, but I also recoil from so much outright brutality and misery - which I can do nothing about.

Of course journalists will argue that they have to give us the full horror of events like wars or mass rapes or barbaric regimes, so we realise just how dreadful they are. To skirt over sickening details or play them down in order to "spare people's feelings" is simply irresponsible.

But at the same time as we're made aware of all these appalling events, we're usually unable to do anything about them, which leaves us feeling not only depressed but frustrated and helpless. I have no influence over any of the public figures who could give us a better world. I can only watch as horror after horror unfolds.

In the end the only thing I can do is turn off the news and retreat into my comfortable domestic bubble, watching episodes of Simon's Cat, listening to Bonnie Raitt, and re-reading my favourite authors. Thank heaven for culture, which is always a reliable antidote to the savagery of the outside world.

The blockade

When he heard Donald Trump had become US President, Erik Hagerman was so shocked and dismayed he decided he'd had enough of the news and from then on was going to ignore it. He would live his life news-free and be a lot happier for it.

Well, so far he seems to have kept his promise and not one news item has spoilt his day. He's fully occupied breeding pigs and making sculptures. Or so he says. It's hard to believe he's indifferent to the President's latest crazy decision or the latest mass shooting, but apparently it all passes him by.

I couldn't cut myself off from the world to that extent. I know so much of the news nowadays is depressing and horrifying, I know it's probably not good for my blood pressure or my emotional well-being, but I couldn't just shut it all out.

Apart from feeling I should be fully informed about what goes on in the world and how people live their lives - including those lives that are violent, nasty and depraved - there are also news items that are encouraging and instructive and I would be missing out on them.

In any case such a boycott (what he calls the blockade) would be almost impossible to maintain without an iron will and all sorts of rigid restrictions. I doubt if I would keep it up for more than a week or two without cracking. I would see a group of people having a heated debate about something and I would be itching to know what they were discussing.

And I have to admit I'm also hooked on those quirky little stories that provide a bit of light relief. Like the controversy among National Trust members as to what you should spread on your scones first - the jam or the cream. I love how people can get so frenzied over such utter trivia.

Pic: Erik Hagerman