Ubiquitous consumption of news doesn’t inform; it cultivates learned helplessness and oversimplifies complex realities, dangerously exacerbating societal polarization. Its sensationalized, fragmented content demonstrably diminishes our sustained attention and critical cognitive functions. Paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson: those who don’t read the news are better informed. Consider news to be like sugar for the brain: highly palatable yet profoundly damaging. Detach and detoxify yourself; reclaim your capacity to think deeply and act constructively. #DigitalDetox #CognitiveBias #InformationLiteracy
On X via https://X.com/Pallieter/status/1934257340091404551 and https://X.com/Pallieter/status/1934257751015977187
Arthur Schopenhauer on Thinking For Oneself in his essay on True Thought nicely explains my reasons for trying to stop fleeting learning and shifting to doing – doing the work, making my notes, and gathering & verifying my own thoughts.
The difference between the effect produced on the mind by thinking for oneself and that produced by reading is incredibly great… Reading is a mere makeshift for original thinking. When we read, we allow another to guide our thoughts… (Making reading equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own?)
Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers, men of genius, world-enlighteners, and reformers of the human race are those who have read directly in the book of the world. We should, therefore, read only when the source of our own ideas dries up, which will be the case often enough even with the best minds… #JustInTimeLearning #ArchitectYourLife #BuildFreedom
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