Perché e come disintossicarsi dai giornali

L’uomo saggio non legge il giornale.

Il giornalista è il pericolo pubblico numero uno.

Secondo il Rolf Dobelli di “Avoid News” le cose stanno pressappoco  in questi termini: la vera dieta che rinvigorisce corpo e spirito sta nel non esporsi alle notizie che oggi ci assediano. Sono talmente numerose che una selezione adeguata somiglia molto ad un’eliminazione totale.

Siamo informatissimi senza conoscere niente, ecco il frutto amaro dell’ “assedio informativo”.

In campo alimentare tutti conosciamo i problemi d’abbondanza (obesità, diabete…), in campo informativo i guai sono ancora più seri.

Tanti zombi “super-notiziati” si aggirano catatonici per la città e presto o tardi ci uniremo alla loro vacua infelicità.

Il numero di guai che radio e giornali portano con loro è cospicuo e farne una cernita è opera preziosa: innanzitutto ti ingannano, l’indulgere al sensazionalismo  deforma l’immagine del reale che forniscono del mondo…

… Take the following event. A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? On the car. On the person in the car. Where he came from. Where he planned to go. How he experienced the crash (if he survived). What kind of person he is (was). But –that is all completely irrelevant. What’s relevant? The structural stability of the bridge…

Gli esempi si moltiplicano…

… •Terrorism is overrated. Chronic stress is underrated. •The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is underrated. •Astronauts are overrated. Nurses are underrated. •Britney Spears is overrated. IPCC reports are underrated. •Airplane crashes are overrated. Resistance to antibiotics is underrated…

I giornali possono essere abbandonati anche perché cio’ che ci dicono è irrilevante.

In un anno il lettore di un quotidiano legge circa 10.000 storie: praticamente nessuna lo aiuta a prendere decisioni importanti. Non esiste alcuna evidenza che chi “macina” giornali dalla mattina alla sera poi decida meglio di chi osserva uno stretto digiuno. Resta giusto il divertimento della lettura, ma allora meglio un videogioco…

… In 1914, the news story about the assassination in Sarajevo dwarfed all other reports in terms of its global significance… The first Internet browser debuted in 1995. The public birth of this hugely relevant piece of software barely made it into the press despite its vast future impact…

I giornali ci rendono più stupidi.

Sui giornali si parla di effetti, mai di cause. E’ tutto un accapigliarsi sugli effetti più superficiali. Ma i fatti importanti sono le cause, senonché, spesso, le cause sono delle non-storie che ai giornali non interessano.

I giornali sono tossici: favoriscono lo stress cronico…

… News constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocordicoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones…

I giornali inducono all’errore cognitivo… Il confirmation bias per esempio:

… We automatically, systematically filter out evidence that contradicts our preconceptions…

O lo story bias:

… Our brains crave stories that “make sense”– even if they don’t correspond to reality… This reminds me of high school. My history textbook specified seven reasons (not six, not eight) why the French Revolution erupted. The fact is, we don’t know why the French Revolution broke out…

I giornali c’incasinano gratuitamente il pensiero.

Pensare richiede concentrazione e il bombardamento di notizie non la concede…

… In a 2001 study1 two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increase…

I giornali ci deformano il cervello.

I giornali sono una droga: se ci imbattiamo in una storia o in una polemica vogliamo seguirla fino in fondo e il giornale ci viene incontro liofilizzandola e liberandola da ogni complicazione. Dopo poco, saremo in grado di assumere informazioni solo in questa forma “svilita”…

… The human brain is highly plastic. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. When we adapt to a new cultural phenomenon, including the consumption of news, we end up with a different brain. Adaptation to news occurs at a biological level. News reprograms us. Most news consumers –even if they used to be avid book readers –have lost the ability to read and absorb lengthy articles or books… Michael Merzenich (University of California, San Francisco), a pioneer in the field of neuroplasticity: “We are training our brains to pay attention to the crap.”Deep reading is indistinguishable from deep thinking…

Leggere i giornali è estremamente costoso. I giornali sono una tassa sulla produttività:

… First, count the consumption-time that news demands…Second, tally up the refocusing time – or switching cost… Third, news distracts us even hours after we’ve digested today’s hot items. News stories and images may pop into your mind hours, sometimes days later…

I giornali minano i nessi tra reputazione e valori reali.

La fama mediatica è spesso illusoria e sganciata da quelli che noi pensiamo essere i meriti effettivi.

I giornali riportano le notizie e le notizie sono un passaparola dei giornalisti…

… My estimate: fewer than 10% of the news stories are original. Less than 1% are truly investigative…

i fatti riportati sui giornali sono spesso errati.

Quando feci un incidente automobilistico di una certa importanza la cosa fu ripresa dal giornale locale e mi accorsi della marea di imprecisioni riportate, dal luogo, alle macchine coinvolte, alla dinamica, e chi più ne ha più ne metta.

Leggendo i giornali subisci una manipolazione.

Per capire che uno ci sta raccontando una balla dobbiamo guardarlo in faccia, tramite i giornali è molto più facile. Magari non ti vendono la balla ma di certo una selezione distorta delle notizie e una sequela di reticenze calcolate ad arte…

… Our evolutionary past has equipped us with a good bullshit detector for face-to-face interactions… Stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers (advertising bias) or the owners of the media (corporate bias), and each media outlet has a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone (mainstream bias)

I giornali ci rendono passivi.

Di fronte alle grandi notizie del mondo non puoi influire, ti fai piccolo piccolo e cominci a coltivare un certo fatalismo…

… Viewed on a timeline, the spread of depression coincides almost perfectly with the growth and maturity of the mass media…

I giornali ti lavano la coscienza…

… “We may want to believe that we are still concerned. We sing “We Are the World”…

I giornali uccidono la tua creatività.

I giornali sono ripetitivi e le cose che già sappiamo uccidono la creatività (per questo gli innovatori sono spesso giovani)…

… I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie. On the other hand, I know a whole bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs…

Cosa fare al posto di leggere i giornali?

… Cut it out completely. Go cold turkey. Glance through the summary page of the Economist once a week. Go for magazines that connect the dots…

 

Commandment 1 - Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) by Lenore Skenazy

Commandment 1 - Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) by Lenore Skenazy - #troppimatti #offertadisicurezza #ilrischiosupremo #forzadellaneddoto

Commandment 1 Know When to WorryRead more at location 290

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Play Dates and Axe Murderers: How to Tell the DifferenceRead more at location 292

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Now look, I’m a mom too, and when plans change, I’d like to get a call. But there’s a difference between being mildly annoyed and hair-standing-straight-up hysterical.Read more at location 305

Note: DOVEVA ANDARE IN GELATERIA CON L AMICHETTA SONO ANDATE IN PIZZERIA CON I COMPAGNI Edit

How dare anyone subject her daughter to that unscheduled ice cream shop experience?Read more at location 317

Note: IL CONTRATTEMPO INNOCUO DIVENTA DRAMMA Edit

a lot of parents today are really bad at assessing risk. They see no difference between letting their children walk to school and letting them walk through a firing range.Read more at location 321

Note: L ARTE DI VALUTARE I RISCHI Edit

Any risk is seen as too much risk.Read more at location 325

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the greatest risk of all just might be trying to raise a child who never encounters any risks.Read more at location 326

Note: IL RISCHIO PIÙ GRANDE Edit

Riding a bike without a helmet strikes me as about as sensible as riding a roller coaster rated MP for “Missing Planks.” My love for seatbelts borders on the obsessive. And car seats? One of those saved my life when I was two and our car somersaulted off the highway.Read more at location 328

Note: CASCHI CINTURE SEGGIOLINI Edit

A woman who wrote me from quiet, suburban Atlanta won’t let her daughter go to the mailbox by herself. That’s right. The mailbox.Read more at location 338

Note: CASSTTA DELLA POSTA Edit

Another dad informed his daughter that he was going to follow her school field trip to make sure nothing happened to her.Read more at location 340

Note: SCORTARE LA GITA SCOLASTICA Edit

Too many creeps out there!Read more at location 344

Note: TROPPI MATTI! Edit

THERE AREN’T ANY MORE CREEPS NOW THAN WHEN WE WERE KIDS. Hard to believe, but that’s what the statistics show.Read more at location 348

Note: NUMERI Edit

David Finkelhor,Read more at location 350

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violent crime in America has been falling since it peaked in the early nineties. That includes sex crimes against kids.Read more at location 351

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Those crimes are so very rare that the rates do not go up or down by much in any given year. Throw in the fact that now almost everyone is carrying a cell phone and can immediately call the policeRead more at location 356

Note: PIÙ ANTIDOTI Edit

The problem is that we parents feel that childhood is more dangerous for our kids than it was for us, and over the course of this book, we’ll look at where those fears come fromRead more at location 359

Note: SENTIMENTO Edit

Dr. F. Sessions Cole, chief medical officer at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital,Read more at location 365

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“The problem is that the public assumes that any risk to any individual is 100 percent risk to them.” What he means is that if people hear about one child who died from falling out of a crib, they immediately assume that their child is at riskRead more at location 366

Note: FORZA DELL ANEDDOTO Edit

And yet rattled parents, besieged by media and each other,Read more at location 373

Note: MEDIA E WHATSUP Edit

They’re not allowed to walk alone (cars!), explore (perverts!), or play in the park (those perverts again) or in the woods (ticks!) or in trees (gravity!) or in water (drowning!) or in dirt (dirt). It’s not your imagination: childhood really has changed. Forty years ago, the majority of U.S. children walked or biked to school. Today, about 10 percent do. Meantime, 70 percent of today’s moms say they played outside as kids. But only 31 percent of their kids do.Read more at location 381

Note: L INFANZIA È CAMBIATA Edit

Where did all this fear come from? Take your pick: The fact that we’re all working so hard that we don’t know our neighbors.Read more at location 386

Note: ORIGINI DELLA PAURA. NN CONOSCIAMO L AMBIENTE Edit

The fact that the marketplace is brimming with products to keep our kids “safe”Read more at location 387

Note: L OFFERTA DEL SICURO Edit

our brains cling to scary thoughts (girls murdered on a country road) but not mundane ones (all the girls who walk home from school without getting murdered).Read more at location 389

Note: IL MALE RESTA IN MENTE Edit

Schools hold pre-field trip assemblies explaining exactly how close the children will be to a hospital.Read more at location 394

Note: ESERCITAZIONI SCOLASTICHE