How I try to stay informed
I consider myself chronically online, which meant, until recently, I didn't have to think much about how I got information - it just happened.
There were always interesting things on the internet. Constantly updating twitter timeline. Rabbitholes you could get lost in. Reddit comments to giggle at. Longreads to longread. Etc.
However, things fell apart in the last few years. Like many things in my mid-30s, I have had to re-evaluate my current state and make conscious choices to do better in this regard.
Some history (or) What led me to this
Lets start with why this is important to me.
Since school, I liked to read newspapers and books, watch TV, and I liked to remember trivia. I have built a self-image on knowing things. I get frustrated when I am out of the loop, I had genuine interest in going deeper into some topics, and I liked being part of a conversation.
This naturally led me to doing some quizzing in school, and then a lot of it in college. Though I stopped competitively quizzing after college, all of those traits remained, just the sources changed.
Reddit, wikipedia, Blogs and webcomics via Google Reader (RIP) were what really started me off in this online journey. I also devoured movies, music -- and books (internet brainrot hadn't destroyed my attention span yet).
In the 2010s, it was all centered on Twitter, Reddit and occasionally other social platforms, and then slowly towards the end of the decade, it was mostly Twitter and YouTube and other algorithmically fed content. I was online for 3-4 hours on twitter, and somehow it was fine. Things felt good.
Pandemic took it to another level. One day, while working from home during the pandemic, I thought to myself, "why don't I play a Youtube video in the background, instead of some music. Multitasking won't be hard..". Famous last words.
Fast forward to a few years later, I could not do anything in my life without a video or a podcast playing the background. I could not listen to my own thoughts.
I was just scrolling.
Mindlessly swiping through Youtube Shorts (no TikTok in India, so..), scrolling through the braindead-threadbro-toxic Twitter (now named differently and under new ownership), and at some point I realized this was not good for me.
I am no longer well informed, I am reading posts by people I truly do not care to hear from. I would skim things, read headlines, and not go deeper. There was just no time. Had to scroll more. Brainrot.
So, slowly, I started picking up the pieces and tried to rework how I consume information.
Motivations (or) What I need in my future info stack
I want to know what is happening in the news
I know a lot of productivity gurus talk about blocking out politics or other news out to keep you focused at your task. That is not me. I need the news. I need the politics. Everything is political, and politics eventually affects everybody.
I am in tech, so I want to stay updated on that as well.
One problem here though - I want variety of news. Before, with twitter I was able to follow journalists and publications and conversations of both local (India/Bangalore) and international (mainly US) news. Now, if I need to replace Twitter, I need to make sure this is taken care of.
I love "opinion"-posts, I love shitposts
I want to follow people who I like, I want to read what they write. I want to read the hot-takes, I want to see the memes, I want to have fun.
I like stories
I like fiction - books, movies, TV shows etc. After my attention span got shot, I stopped reading books, slowly the number of movies I watched reduced. I still watched TV shows, but a lot of them became background noise. I want to consume more of this, more consciously.
Sidequest: I want to be introspective, and productive
I want to read the occasional non-fiction and serious reads. I want to clear my head and think about all the things I am reading, watching, and give it space to settle.
What did not work
- Cold-turkey logged off of twitter
- Replaced it with Threads/Mastodon/BlueSky - they still aren't like the old Twitter in terms variety of people, content
- Used ScreenTime on iPhone to block apps
- Downloaded newsapps on my phone (NYTimes, The Hindu for India, Google News) and made myself I would open them
- Bombarded myself with notifications from all these apps to be up to date on the news
- Subscribed to like 200 substacks, and built a complicated forwarding mechanisms to read them on a read later app like Instapaper
- Picked up books and forced myself to read every day for 30 mins
- Binged on Ali Abdaal videos and tried to make myself a second brain
- Greyedout my phone screen
- Tried to limit myself to things that bored me out of my mind
Issues:
- If I stop using something, I need to replace it with something else which roughly solves those problems
- For India news, following websites is just not working
- A flat list of new things either in my inbox or on Instapaper is not useful. Just adds to my todo list, makes me anxious
- Its really easy to turn off screen time to block apps
- This feels like punishment - I was trying to consume media/books which I "should" consume, rather than what I "want" to consume
- I don't care if I have a second brain
- Too many notifications
- No "habit". I still unconsciously try to open the same apps
Implementation (or) What's on currently
After a couple of years of what I mentioned more, here are the few things that are working for me.
Reading a physical newspaper for local news
I realized I was struggling to find resources online for local news. But this problem had been solved long ago with actual newspapers. So now I subscribe to Deccan Herald, a local newspaper which gives me my local politics, India news, opinions, and just some fun things happening around the city.
It arrives at my doorstep at 8 in the morning, and its a peaceful way to start your day.
Deleting all social media apps
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc are deleted from my phone. I have some of these logged in on my laptop - and use it too much there instead. Trying to stop that as well. Though this was hard in the beginning, as I realized the I was actually mindlessly refreshing and not actually looking at anything new, it became easier. It took time, but I don't crave to look at twitter anymore.
I still have a few apps like YouTube, reddit, bluesky, mastodon on my phone. But all these apps are only allowed for a 2x 2hour window in the morning and evening. So that I am not spending time scrolling on them too early, too late or during work. I recommend Opal which does a decent job of blocking it and making it hard to exit. But in the end, the tool is only as helpful your motivation to use it.
Going directly to the news sources
I have NYT, The Verge apps on my phone, and I check them few times a day for news. No algorithm middleman telling me what to read. The Verge also has a feed, which occasionally gives me news from other sources as well, recommended by their journalists. I do have some "algorithm news apps" on my phone - Google News, InShorts, Particle. However, instead of opening them, I funnel their news notifications to the iOS scheduled summary, so I have a news bulletin twice a day.
Follow blogs, newsletters, podcasts
After a lot of trial and error on how I should read blogs/newsletters, I finally arrived at a solution that works for me.
11 years after Google Reader died, I started using RSS again. I had tried using Feedly back in the day, so started with that first. But found its interface a bit too cluttered annoying features. So now I am using Reeder Classic both on my iPhone and on my MacBook.
I subscribe to a variety of blogs - from tech to music to geography to summary of internet culture.
This is another habit which took some time to build. Now I open this app regularly and read, instead of randomly scroll on a timeline.
I also subscribe to some newsletters, which arrive directly on my email. I subscribe to the NYT Daily Briefing, Finshots for daily dose of Indian finance-adjacent deepdives, Splainer which is a nice India-based daily news digest.
I use PocketCasts to listen to podcasts either while I am running, doing chores or commuting. Here are all that I am subscribed to.
Reading books I like
I started with reading easy murder mysteries - Keigo Higashino is my go-to whenever I get stuck. DNF-ed a bunch of books which I started but took way to long to read or felt like it kept me from reading. There are some books you pick up and read even when there are other things you could do. Find them, and read them. Ignore the others.
This helped me hit 20 books in 2024, probably the first time I hit double digits in a very long time. Link to my goodreads.
Checking-in with myself
I use Notion as my occasional journal. So couple of times a month, I just check-in with myself, write what happened over the last couple of weeks and what I want to do in the next two. I have also been thinking about blogging into the void so that I get into the habit of writing - so hopefully this post is the first of many.
Future
Though current state is a big improvement from where I was a year ago, it is far from perfect. Here are a few things I want to improve:
- Brainrot hasn't gone away yet. Stop skimming. Read things properly.
- I still get lost occasionally in mindless social media - Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn. Completely box them into a limited slot.
- Stop opening random apps that are available on my phone out of habit whenever I feel fidgety. (why am I checking NYT homepage 10 times a day now??!)
- Need a "read later" system for things that aren't in RSS.
- Trim things you don't read, find new, exciting things to follow.
- It is ok to let things pile up and not read them if you get busy with things. Stop letting it make you feel anxious. Auto-mark them as read or something.
- Write more.
In conclusion, I have a "v1" of my information stack. It is a "pull-based" system, i.e., I consume things what I want when I want it, rather than the algorithm and notifications telling me what to do.
It is still a bit overwhelming, it is still new. But it is a start, and a path forward. So I am optimistic.