4 Reasons Why Avoiding Mainstream Media Makes You Happier
Don’t fall into the fear trap.
Created with Midjourney
You turn on the TV or your phone to check the news and you are constantly bombarded with information.
What’s true and what isn’t? And what should you actually care about?
This just adds to your already stressful life, reducing your overall happiness.
Mainstream media is the worst culprit of all.
For years we depended on mainstream media to keep us updated on world events. We blindly believed everything we saw.
What other option did we really have?
Radio, newspaper… nothing else really.
Information is now democratized and smartphones capture every moment. We no longer need to rely on mainstream media, and their downfall has begun.
In my opinion, this is for the best.
Without mainstream media, we will be happier. So why not start avoiding it now?
In this blog post, I will give you 4 reasons why avoiding mainstream media will make you happier.
It’s insanely negative.
Fear sells. We all know that and yet many people still feed into it.
Perhaps it’s because fear is entertaining, or maybe it is just addicting. That would make sense considering the horror movie industry exists.
Yet, horror movies are fiction, and we know that.
It’s hard not to keep watching mainstream media when they are constantly giving you reasons to be afraid. You continue to watch because you want to know how much it will affect you, or how it’s affecting the next person.
They’ve trapped you.
Now, you are stuck consuming fear and negativity day after day. Their ratings go up the more they feed you, and like an addict, you can’t stop.
Remove this negativity from your life. It will make you happier.
You’ll have more time
One-quarter of all mainstream media is commercials.
While Instagram tends to have the same ratio, the difference is that you can choose how long you stay on those ads. You just quickly swipe, and it’s gone.
What I’m getting at is that you are wasting valuable time.
Now, if the content you were consuming is very important to you, I can understand why this time may be worth it, but my point is that there are better alternatives.
You can get your news from other sources quicker, and more accurately than mainstream media.
For example, take Twitter.
Twitter has been increasingly efficient in getting the news. Your mainstream media is still present and often tweeting out their news before it’s played on their TV channels.
There’s a key difference though.
People are constantly fact-checking mainstream media on Twitter. You can see when they are inaccurate with their stories far quicker. You save time and get more truth.
On top of that, you can follow independent journalists. Journalists who have far less of a bias, don’t have to answer to the programming that mainstream media forces on others, and will feed your the news far quicker.
You can get your news in seconds, instead of being forced to watch an hour-long program that is feeding you constantly unnecessary commercials and negativity.
That’s only one example of an alternative.
Traditional mainstream media is on the way out.
Commercial pressure
As I just mentioned, one-quarter of mainstream media is commercials.
These commercials are fed into their programming.
If you’re American, you’re likely fed a disgusting amount of pharmaceutical ads followed by minutes of all the potential side effects.
It’s trash.
You’re constantly being sold on garbage, told what to buy and reminded of what you can’t afford.
It’s stressful, it’s annoying and quite frankly you don’t need to deal with it.
It’s not only the commercials though. These channels are funded by the ones purchasing ads on their networks.
That means the actual program is also selling you something. Either their views or a product.
Do you think if McDonald’s (for example) buys 25% of their ad space, the network will tell you when McDonald’s has done something wrong?
No, they will pick and choose who they talk badly about, or talk about at all.
Their entire networks are designed to push certain brands and the views of the brands based on who is funding them.
You have the option to remove mainstream media from your life to alleviate commercial pressure and increase your overall happiness.
Increased Ability To Think
Mainstream media is biased. That’s the truth and whether we like it or not.
It’s biased to side with the views of who’s running the programming and who’s funding the programming.
For example, Fox News skews to the right wing, and CNN skews to the left.
Whichever side you watch, you are now being told how to think, what to think and quite often, what is the truth.
What do I mean by being told: “What is the truth”?
Far too often, mainstream media will tell you their opinion and word it to make you think it is the reality. They will quite often cut their videos to remove parts so it better fits their narrative.
For example, when Donald Trump on January 6th, 2020 told viewers to march to the capitol, he said “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.
NBC clipped the video to avoid that part. Their video circulated the internet and many people didn’t notice that it was cleverly clipped.
On Fox, they played the video including the “peacefully” part.
Now, why would NBC do that?
Simple. They wanted to make it appear as if he was inciting violence more than he actually was because it fits their narrative.
NBC leans to the left, and Fox to the right. That means it is in NBC's best interest to make Trump look as bad as possible, and Fox’s to make him look good.
To be clear, I’m not a Donald Trump fan, but I am a fan of the truth.
When a media outlet claims to give you the news, but fails to give you context that matters… You are being lied to.
This means the mainstream media is trying to tell you their story, not the story. This decreases your ability to think clearly, and critically.
As I’ve said in the past, your life is a compilation of decisions. It’s in your best interest to be the best decision-maker you can be.
How can you do that when your facts are wrong?
If you can no longer make the best decision, that will impact your levels of happiness.
You end up losing control of reality because you surrounded yourself with lies. Now, you live in the reality they created for you.
By removing mainstream media from your life, not only do you allow yourself to think more clearly, you will increase the control you have over your life,
And, your overall happiness.
Conclusion
The idea of mainstream media lying to us, and controlling what we see to fit their narrative can be hard for many people to grasp. After all, for years, we relied on them to tell us about world events.
Luckily for us, there are now alternatives.
With information being widely available thanks to the internet, smartphones, and all the other wonderful technology we have - we can now find the truth more easily.
By knowing the truth, we can make proper decisions.
And, by making proper decisions, we can have control of our lives and our happiness.
Thanks for reading,
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