The potential for overwhelm is simply terrible now, isn't it?
In the station in Newcastle on a work trip back from Scotland recently, I decided it was time to change my news input and go somewhere else other than the BBC.
And so I signed up for The Spectator magazine.
I've admired The Spectator for years, and it was a deal that was too good to be true, so now my news is coming from The Spectator app daily (and a weekly magazine) and the New York Times at the moment because I feel I have a responsibility to see what's happening in the USA.
The problem with this is now that there are two apps on my phone that are updating news really quite regularly (I don't have any notifications, but they're still there). The amount of news that I could consume has increased exponentially. Therefore, the anxiety and distress and the overwhelm of what's happening around the world (massacres in Syria, for example) are staggering and horrible.
It reminded me of the end of Anchorman 2, where Anchorman (Will Ferrell) is trying to get to his son's recital and ends up in a fight with all the different news teams in the park, one of his crew shouts, "Oh my God, there's so much news" and god, there is so much news.
That doesn't even take into account the fact that I try to keep up with what's happening in my own professional sphere, both in terms of education and new developments, but also actually just the news of what's happening around dentistry (I run a dental practice) and what's happening in those areas.
All of this comes back though to the point, doesn't it, that the only thing we can do is choose how to spend our time, choose what to focus on and not allow ourselves to be dragged unconsciously and inadvertently down a road we didn't mean to travel.
Putting some time aside to catch up on the bits that are important, throwing away the magazines that come in that I don't really want to read at all, avoiding the FOMO or the distraction of being sucked into the life of people whose life I'm never going to emulate or copy or learn from is absolutely critical and important.
It's been 10 years since I gave up social media; people said at that time that it would definitely have a detrimental effect on my career.
I'm delighted with how detrimental it was. It's ideal at the moment, actually.
Blog Post Number - 4111