most news is noise

content/post/news-noise.md

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+---
+title: "Most News is Noise"
+date: 2024-03-10T20:37:42+05:30
+categories: ["Content"]
+tags: ["microessays","news","noise","books","research"]
+---
+
+I find most sources of information these days (since several years) to
+be too noisy compared to the actual signals of wisdom you expect from
+a popular source.  
+
+Rarely, I'll pull up the news application on my phone and consume a
+whole bunch of generic, and some domain specific news.  
+
+Other than state of the art research in a technical domain, which is 
+based upon a corpora of established citations, most other "new" stuff is
+noise.  
+
+Such media doesn't particularly invoke any extreme emotion other than
+temporary intellectual intrigue at best. At worst, it might be a shun
+or an indifferent scroll.  
+
+I might not even recall a piece of news that I'd consumed fairly
+recently, almost akin to a tweet or a reel that I scroll past to pass
+short slots of time during the day.  
+
+Now, social media is explicitly looked down upon due to several
+obvious reasons that I do not intend on enumerating out right now.  
+
+But consuming news is a somewhat societally neutral (positive even,
+according to some) phenomenon that I personally find to be best
+formulated to make it sound like the consumer engages with the world
+around actively.  
+
+It allows you to put on the facade of "being in the know", to feign
+awareness.  
+
+Although truly being aware has philosophical connotations that I
+haven't fully explored yet, consuming news doesn't particularly align
+with any of my major life goals relevant to this domain.  
+
+Reading research backed books is a much better investment in so that
+what you read stays with you in a consolidated, sub-conscious
+manner. This will nudge the status of your mind presently just enough
+to make a difference than if you hadn't read the book.  
+
+With news, all that is poured in stays on the surface due to its
+fluffy nature and also readily evaporates the moment you move on.  
+
+I personally haven't ever faced noticeabely severe consequences of
+being in the generic dark. Anything that is too important always is
+the first thing to come up at lunch or dinner.  
+
+Why bother then, is what I'd like to leave this micro-essay at.