The older I get, and the more I read, the less I know what to make of the news. We have to guard our emotions these days because a lot of headlines are crafted to elicit a reaction (or a click). One of the problems is the need to look further into a news story to get an informed picture. With a book, you can look at the notes, check the sources, analyze the arguments, read in depth reviews, and wrestle with the text.

I moderate news consumption because I don’t have as much brain space as I’d like to think. When I only read books, my extra thinking for the day is about a book. When I read blip after blip of news, my thoughts are bouncing around and disorganized, and I’m also usually fighting off one of several different emotional reactions. When I was a kid, the news was a 20 minute segment on television at night. Today I could consume news all day long and still only scratch the surface. If we can’t moderate our news consumption, no wonder we would find a lot of things to despair about.