On low-information diets

Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, oil-on-canvas painting by German-American artist Emanuel Leutze

I used to follow the news. I don’t anymore.

I’m not militant about this. I’ll read an article if someone sends it to me. And I’ll see TV segments when I’m getting my haircut, visiting family, or drinking coffee in a hotel lobby. When I do read an article or catch a segment, I’m struck by how much of the content is the same. Even if weeks or months pass between watching.

I’m happier on a low-information diet.

Fifty years from now, I doubt I’ll wish I followed the news more closely.

Turning the volume down on current events that don’t have any tangible impact on our lives gives us the bandwidth to do other things. Things better aligned with our values and goals.

I have a friend who recommended this low-information diet. He told me he was using his newfound bandwidth to begin reading American presidential biographies in chronological order, starting with George Washington.

Today, he’s on Gerald Ford.

A low information diet doesn’t mean we don’t care about the rest of the world. That we’ve given up.

The opposite, really.

With newfound bandwidth, we can spend our finite time focusing on things more aligned with our values and goals.

And when we spend our time on those things, we make the world a little bit better too.