Around the election, in a desperate search for answers about our nation’s future, I found myself scrolling, reading, and watching everything I could. I was trapped in an endless pull-to-refresh cycle of consuming more news, tweets, posts, and videos than was good for me. I told myself that I was staying informed, that this was part of my civic duty—and that not staying up-to-date 24-7 would leave me politically ignorant and impotent.

I’ve since changed my mind. In fact, I’ve decided to give up consuming news online, and I think you should consider doing the same. Here’s why:

You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: How to Stay Informed Without Losing Your Mind https://www.nirandfar.com/2016/12/how-to-stay-informed-without-losing-your-mind.html

Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/

Around the election, in a desperate search for answers about our nation’s future, I found myself scrolling, reading, and watching everything I could. I was trapped in an endless pull-to-refresh cycle of consuming more news, tweets, posts, and videos than was good for me. I told myself that I was staying informed, that this was part of my civic duty—and that not staying up-to-date 24-7 would leave me politically ignorant and impotent.

I’ve since changed my mind. In fact, I’ve decided to give up consuming news online, and I think you should consider doing the same. Here’s why:

Much has been written about the incentives driving the news media. One of their missions is to inform. But media companies are also businesses, which means they must sustain themselves.

You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: How to Stay Informe

DJ Khaled, the one-man internet meme, is known for warning his tens of millions of social media followers about a group of villains he calls “they.”

“They don’t want you motivated. They don’t want you inspired,” he blares on camera. “They don’t want you to win,” he warns. On Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show, Khaled urged the host, “Please, Ellen, stay away from them!”

You can read the Nir and Far blog post on How to Achieve Your Goals By Creating an Enemy https://www.nirandfar.com/2017/02/goals-enemy.html

The subject line read: “did you see this?” The message was from my editor Jen. “Nir, I saw the headline on this story and thought it might be written by you—but no!” she wrote. “Very weird.” I instantly clicked on the link she’d sent.

It was uncanny! An article written by Christopher Mele at the New York Times, freakishly similar to a post I’d written but hadn’t yet published.

You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: What Do You Do When Someone “Steals” Your Amazing Idea? https://www.nirandfar.com/2016/11/think-you-have-a-good-idea-someone-else-has-it-too.html

Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/

If you’ve started a tech company to make a lot of money, chances are you’re bad at math—or simply delusional. Statistically speaking, your odds of a big-time payday are somewhere between zero and almost zero.

Ninety-two percent of startups fail within three years. Only one percent of apps in the Apple App Store are financially successful. And even for the fortunate few companies that raise venture funding, seventy-five percent will fail to generate a return on investors’ capital.

You can read the Nir and blog post on: 3 Pillars of the Most Successful Tech Products https://www.nirandfar.com/2016/10/successful-tech-products.html

Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/