I keep vaguely informed. But watching it 24/7 is unhealthy.

Know what’s going on, but don’t obsess over it. Because, as you rightly state, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. Why get upset over stuff you can’t control?

no

Strongly filter and limit the news you consumes. Do not spend hours watching or keeping up on it.

Do prepare yourself and your chosen community. Build relationships. Fix your life, body, finances. Get as ready as you can to catch yourself and those falling.

Do get into a group that tells you when local events are happening.

Do find joy.

This is something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. I think there’s a danger to doomscrolling and upsetting yourself about things you can’t change, and it can be really unhealthy. But there’s also a real danger from turning away from the bad things that happen. And in my experience, the people who know least about the world, who “don’t follow politics”, etc are often the people responsible for the problems.

Although wallowing in tragedy doesn’t help anyone, being aware that bad things happen and doing what you can in real life to make the world a better place is important. But the moderation is important - getting upset doesn’t help anyone. So I try to limit my time with current affairs to specific times reading articles and reports, so I can learn about the world in a calm way. Rather than the drip drip anxiety provoking chaos of 24 hour news and social media.

There are lots of options in between. You should be broadly aware of news, but do not need to be constantly exposed to them.

Maybe this article https://stallman.org/articles/dont-watch-covid-tv.html will help you, I am not sure whether I agree with all details of it, but the author is right about many other important things, so maybe it helps you.

These are dark times, and it certainly feels like doing anything on your own is hopeless.

Which is a line of thinking that the bad guys love to hear.

What the bad guys cannot stand or tolerate, is solidarity. The truth of the matter is that the bad guys are badly outnumbered, which is why they act forcefully; they need the populace to to be docile.

You don’t need to be a foot soldier to help. You can resist in all sorts of ways. A constant supply of passive aggressive acts from all directions can be incredibly effective way of degrading the morale of fascists.

There’s this concept called circle of influence, which is basically what things can you actually do about the things that you know.

99.9% of politics are outside of any of our individual circles of influence, And news profits immensely off of sharing every single bit of misery inducing sad and dreadful knowledge they can peddle.

So if it’s outside of your circle of influence, then feel free to completely fucking ignore it, because you can’t do a goddamn thing about it, and knowing about it only makes you sad.

Like the saying goes, where it is folly to be wise, ignorance is bliss.

That being said, if there are things that are local to you, or things that you or your friends are passionate about, that are inside of your circle of influence, take the energy you would have spent being sad about the stuff you can’t do anything about, and direct it to the things that you can do anything about.

It’s probably not healthy but it’s what I’m doing.

It’s either that or depression and 😯🔫

I think the trick is finding a balance between ignoring it and keeping up with what is happening. Most of the National News is just reports of what terrible thing the White House is doing today. Those reports are unnecessary and time consuming. Don’t give into the rage bait. A lot of this is easier said than done but try to find a balance.

I just limit how much news I get- basically just what pops up in my lemmy feed and a news show I watch a few times a week.

Being exposed to awful headlines 24/7 is almost definitely going to be rough on your mental health.

The most important thing is to protect your mental health so you can function and be resilient.

Being informed on the chaos of the world is far behind that in the priority list. The radius you can impact is tiny compared to the rest of the world and the constant feed of atrocities you get hit with every day. And you don’t have unlimited attention to spend. Focus on what’s around you and making that better. The rest is, for the most part, noise that you have no control over whatsoever.

To an extent. You need to keep an ear out but if you let it, it will make you miserable.

I know someone like this. She votes Trump because she genuinely doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on. Her family has always voted R so she continues to do so.

I emotionally withdraw myself from the politics. I do read the headlines and summaries but usually skip details that might upset myself.

You can handle what you can handle, and trying to drink from the firehose will only burn you out. Be as active in your community as you can, when you can, then take a break when you need to. Your own mental health matters, too.