I enjoy reading the news. I have done it since I was a teenager reading the daily paper that my father loved. Several years ago I made the switch from real newspapers to online news sites. Reading the news has (almost) always been something that I enjoyed and looked forward to. Not so anymore. Reading the news now is depressing and makes me feel bad.

I can tell you when this started: in late 2016 when Trump was elected president here in the USA. At the time I was one of many who was shocked by his victory. Reading the news at that time was depressing and scary for me. I eventually got over the "scary" part, but it has remained a mostly depressing activity ever since. Several times since then I have taken "news breaks" where I don't read or watch any news. My most recent break was the entire month of July 2025. These breaks help my mental health, and make me realize that I don't need to constantly keep up-to-date with the news of the world, country or my state. In fact I don't even miss it during these breaks, and I am constantly saying that my mental health is better for it.

There are a couple of things that keep pulling me back to the news, however. First is that I actually enjoy keeping abreast of what is going on in our world. Ever since those teenage days when I was reading the fat daily newspaper, I have liked being in-the-know. I still feel that way, somewhat, and it keeps pulling me back to reading the news. The second thing is that it has become a habit - something to do when I am not busy. It is super easy to just browse to a news site and see what is going on. What I need is something equally easy and interesting to replace that habit - something that is better for my mental health.

The problem now is that nearly all the news is depressing to me, and after reading it I think to myself that I have gained nothing by consuming the news, but rather it has made me angry or sad instead. You'd think that'd be enough to dissuade me from reading further news, but no. It is like an addiction, and is a hard habit to break.

I long for the days when my daily dose of news came from an actual newspaper. That was nicer is some ways, like not having annoying moving/blinking/video ads, and not using shocking/click-bait headlines to lure the reader in. (Well, not so much, anyway.) Perhaps it is just my faltering and selective memory, but I don't remember there being so much political news either. Before the internet there were more news articles about what was happening in certain parts of the world, and deeper dives into the why and how of it all. I wish we could go back to those kinds of news articles, but that will most likely never happen - not unless we, as a society, make a sea change in how we read and what we consume. I can dream though, right?