Rolf Dobelli

Most people think that consuming the news makes one uninformed a citizen who is equipped to form intelligent opinions on social and political issues.

In this video, drawing from the Swiss author Rolf Dobelli's book Stop Reading the News, a manifesto for a happier, calmer, and wiser life, we argue that the opposite is true.

News consumption fosters ignorance, intolerance, passivity, and chronic stress.

News organizations want you to believe they're giving you a competitive advantage.

In fact, consuming the news is far from a competitive advantage.

It actively disadvantages you.

There's no question that the dross we're spoon-fed every day is not only completely worthless but actively damaging, writes Rolf Dobelli.

To understand one of the problems with news consumption, we can turn to a well-known set of experiments conducted by psychologists Martin Seligman and Stephen Meyer in the 1960s.