I’ve realized that I check the news several times a day but not because I’m curious about what’s happening on the grand scheme of things, but because my brain wants to check something that keeps changing with new, evolving information. It fills a slightly different niche than social media, and I don’t watch sports so I don’t have that to check. Can anyone think of something else that could fill this need? I could read blogs but they just don’t feel current. And the news is making be stress about information I didn’t need to know.
There’s always the weather. I check that plus an app I have for the guages on our local rivers as I am a fly fisherman.
I’m a junkie for YouTube maker videos and other forms of creative infotainment. I binge on This Old Tony and Farmcraft101 videos, but I also listen to several podcasts adjacent to my (rather technical) professional sector.
Ugh, and politics. Stresses me out too.
This old tony is the GOAT
The news communities on lemmy. It’s still the news, but sometimes i appreciate the comments.
Comments is where the real work gets done. That’s how reddit used to work before it turned into bot networks spinning narratives for interested parties etc
I think a lot of the meme content here is bots as well.
But since most users don’t post anything, it’s better than the alternative.
The mastodon feed I’ve painstakingly curated for myself
coupla blogs and lemmy subscribed ordered by top day; once I’m done with it, that’s it, no doomscrolling no more. all news and sports are filtered out, along with memes and similar stupid shit.
if im really craving something, read a book (thanks Anna!), reinstall one of the cheap laptops I got, go for a run/walk/bike ride etc. works most of the time.
This may not be the type of answer you are looking for, but personally I check on my friends and family. It helps me somewhat avoid overly browsing Lemmy. I’ll send them a text asking how they are or what’s new.
I tell my brain that this is a local and personalized news source. 🙃
Don’t bother with the 24 rolling news updates. It is much better to watch a video news summary a few days later. A really really good YouTube channel called TLDR news (they have a number of subchannels) that I would highly recommend.
The other thing is to use RSS…never news websites. RSS presents news chronologically. Websites curate to put absolute shit on their front-page so avoid that. If you use an RSS app like Pluma, then it lets you set a blacklist (like I’ve excluded news about Biden, Trump, Covid, vaccines, Israel, Ukraine, Superbowl, football, etc)… It really let’s you exclude what you don’t want to see and improve what shows up in your list.
Metafilter!
@yogthos@lemmy.ml, obviously.
lol I’m definitely in the news checking to pass the time boat :)
Going for a walk can sometimes scratch that itch. Instead of checking the news of a national or global scale, which you can’t ultimately do a lot about anyway, you’re checking “the news” of your immediate environment with your own eyeballs. It usually doesn’t change a lot, but what else is new?
Everytime i go for a walk i see something new that i haven’t noticed before.
Doing what to casual observater seems like the same thing over and over again, can actually be the process of developing a deeper understanding of the subject area than before, (in this case your local neighbourhood).
And if it’s nature that catches your interest, in addition to walking, you could follow a live stream of some animal you may or may not care about.
I got into watching an Osprey hatch her eggs on a stream. Didn’t even know about the birds until I started, but the hook set quickly.
Watched that feed for weeks, checking to see who’s been eating, who’s been pooping, & who’s still sleeping. Pretty satisfying by the time the chicks left the nest.
deleted by creator
‘Saved’
Thanks for reminding us and for letting us know, I will have to make time to set one up for myself!
Do you have any RSS feed apps you’d recommend?
Newsblur. it’s open source but there’s a hosted instance of it, and it’s paid (but very cheap) so it’s a fair exchange. it’s run by one guy and has been for a long time; I’ve used it for over 10 years now.
Fresh RSS if you want a self hosted option
Nunti works well. https://gitlab.com/ondrejfoltyn/nunti
Lemmy, All, Top 6 Hours
I need to start doing this more… “Active” starts to get pretty stale.
Yeah, Top 6 Hours stays pretty fresh. And if I feel like it’s getting stale it means I’ve been on too long in a row and need a break anyway.
Then I just block any communities or instances I don’t want to see in my feed.
I like watching well-done cinematic synopses of characters or storylines. Watched only AFTER having seen the series.
Here’s one for Altered Carbon S01. Very BladeRunner, very neo-noir, 80s meets 20s. Here’s one for the Expanse, story focused, 2 movements, so compassion-inducing
Both are by this creator.
Two of my top ten shows right now. I think I’m going to go finish DEVS right now.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I liked Devs. It had a dope concept. That show didn’t get much buzz.
Now that is someone who has thought about this question a lot
This looks like it deserves my time, I will give it a read.
I get my “education” from Lemmy
