雙語閱讀：新聞少讀竟然更快樂

摘要：對於思維，它們就像五彩繽紛的糖果。如今，新聞對於我們來講如同20年前的食物一樣，人們逐漸意識到，新聞可能也是有害的。

In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the y, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.

新聞少讀竟然更快樂

News misleads. Take the following event (borrowed from Nassim Taleb). A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car. The person in the car. Where he came from. Where he planned to go. How he experienced the crash (if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What's relevant? The structural stability of the bridge. That's the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. But the car is flashy, it's dramatic, it's a person (non-abstract), and it's news that's cheap to leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated.

We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability. If you think you can compensate with the strength of your own inner contemplation, you are wrong. Bankers and economists – who have powerful incentives to compensate for news-borne hazards – have shown that they cannot. The only solution: cut yourself off from news consumption entirely.

News is irrelevant. Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business. The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognise what's relevant. It's much easier to recognise what's new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organisations want you to believe that news offers you some sort of a competitive advantage. Many fall for that. We get anxious when we're cut off from the flow of news. In reality, news consumption is a competitive disadvantage. The less news you consume, the bigger the advantage you have.

News has no explanatory power. News items are bubbles popping on the surface of a deeper world. Will accumulating facts help you understand the world? Sadly, no. The relationship is inverted. The important stories are non-stories: slow, powerful movements that develop below journalists' radar but have a transforming effect. The more "news factoids" you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand. If more information leads to higher economic success, we'd expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. That's not the case.

News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system . Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.

News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: "What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact." News exacerbates this flaw. We become prone to overconfidence, take stupid risks and misjudge opportunities. It also exacerbates another cognitive error: the story bias. Our brains crave stories that "make sense" – even if they don't correspond to reality. Any journalist who writes, "The market moved because of X" or "the company went bankrupt because of Y" is an idiot. I am fed up with this cheap way of "explaining" the world.

News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers. But it's worse than that. News severely affects memory. There are two types of memory. Long-range memory's capacity is nearly infinite, but working memory is limited to a certain amount of slippery data. The path from short-term to long-term memory is a choke-point in the brain, but anything you want to understand must pass through it. If this passageway is disrupted, nothing gets through. Because news disrupts concentration, it weakens comprehension. Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting. News is an intentional interruption system.

News works like a drug. As stories develop, we want to know how they continue. With hundreds of arbitrary storylines in our heads, this craving is increasingly compelling and hard to ignore. Scientists used to think that the dense connections formed among the 100 billion neurons inside our skulls were largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. Today we know that this is not the case. Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. The more news we consume, the more we exercise the neural circuits devoted to skimming and multitasking while ignoring those used for reading deeply and thinking with profound focus. Most news consumers – even if they used to be avid book readers – have lost the ability to absorb lengthy articles or r four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. It's not because they got older or their schedules became more 's because the physical structure of their brains has changed.

News wastes time. If you read the newspaper for 15 minutes each morning, then check the news for 15 minutes during lunch and 15 minutes before you go to bed, then add five minutes here and there when you're at work, then count distraction and refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every rmation is no longer a scarce commodity. But attention is. You are not that irresponsible with your money, reputation or health. Why give away your mind?

News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can't act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitised, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is "learned helplessness". It's a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression.

News kills creativity. Finally, things we already know limit our creativity. This is one reason that mathematicians, novelists, composers and entrepreneurs often produce their most creative works at a young age. Their brains enjoy a wide, uninhabited space that emboldens them to come up with and pursue novel ideas. I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to come up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions, don't.

Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too.

I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, more insights. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

過去幾十年，我們有幸認識到過量飲食的危害(例如導致肥胖和糖尿病)，進而開始改變飲食結構。但是，大多數人並不知道新聞之於思維，如同糖類之於身體。媒體奉上的逸聞趣事、瑣碎信息其實與我們的生活無甚關聯，但易於理解，讀起來並不費腦。因此我們對新聞從未有過飽足感。與閱讀書籍和長篇雜誌文章(這些都需要邊讀邊思考)相比，無數閃現在眼前的小段新聞更加易於“吞噬”。對於思維，它們就像五彩繽紛的糖果。如今，新聞對於我們來講如同20年前的食物一樣，人們逐漸意識到，新聞可能也是有害的。

新聞產生誤導。下面借用納西姆·塔勒布[1]的一個例子：一輛車駛過一座橋，結果橋塌了。這則新聞的重點是什麼呢?是這輛車，是車裏的人—他從哪裏來，要到哪兒去?(如果他倖免於難)這場事故經過是怎樣的?然而，這些都無關緊要。什麼纔是至關重要的呢?是大橋的結構穩定性。它暗含着重大風險，而同樣的風險還可能存在於其他橋樑。但是新聞中卻充斥着這輛車如何光鮮亮麗，遭遇如何扣人心絃的信息，甚至把它刻畫成一個人物(非抽象的)。如此報道，毫無價值。新聞給大腦一張全然錯誤的風險地圖，讓我們偏離了重點。正因如此，恐怖主義、雷曼兄弟破產以及宇航員這類主題被過度渲染，而慢性精神壓力、財政失責以及醫護人員這類主題卻報道不足。

面對媒體，我們尚不夠理性。看到電視裏報道飛機失事，也不管這種概率實際有多大，人們很容易就改變自己對此類風險的看法。如果你以爲能通過內心的深思熟慮抵消這種影響，那麼你錯了。事實表明，銀行家和經濟學家縱然利用強大的手段也無法彌補新聞導致的危害。唯一解決之道是：與新聞完全隔絕。

新聞無關緊要。在你最近一年中閱讀的上萬條資訊中，很難找出這樣一條新聞：因爲讀了它，讓你面臨人生、職場或事業的重大問題時做出了更好的決定。原因在於，你所讀的新聞與你自身毫無關係。人們很難辨別哪些新聞與自己有關係，但是很容易知道哪些是新的。當今時代，關聯度和新穎性是一對基本矛盾。媒體想讓人們覺得新聞可以爲之提供某種競爭優勢，而許多人竟信以爲真。一旦與新聞隔絕，我們就焦躁不安。而事實上，新聞只會令人在競爭中處於劣勢。讀的新聞越少，你的優勢反而越多。

新聞無法解釋世界。新聞不過是浮於表面的水泡，現實世界深藏其下。不斷積累事實有助於你瞭解這個世界嗎?很遺憾，不能。恰恰相反，真正重要的事實並沒有報道出來。它們不爲記者關注，發展緩慢，卻擁有改變一切的強大能量。你對杜撰新聞消費得越多，你對現實宏圖的瞭解就越少。如果資訊越多，經濟就越繁榮，那我們真該期望記者們穩坐金字塔頂端。但事實絕非如此。

新聞毒害身體。它不斷觸動大腦邊緣系統。令人恐慌的新聞使人體內糖皮質激素(皮質醇)呈級聯式分泌，導致免疫系統紊亂，抑制生長荷爾蒙分泌。也就是說，使身體長期處於精神壓力之下。高糖皮質激素水平還導致消化功能受損、(細胞、毛髮和骨骼)生長緩慢、情緒緊張，讓人容易感染疾病。其他潛在副作用還包括：恐懼感、攻擊性、視野狹窄和麻木不仁。

新聞增加認知錯誤。新聞爲“確認偏誤”[2]提供養分，而後者正是一切認知錯誤的源泉。沃倫·巴菲特曾說“人類最擅長將所有新信息都解釋一通，以確保先前的結論不受影響。”新聞則是這種缺陷的幫兇，使我們過於自信，盲目冒險，錯判時機。此外，新聞還助長了另一種認知錯誤：新聞偏見。大腦渴望“有意義”的新聞，即便這些新聞與事實不符。弱智記者在稿子中解釋“市場因爲某某原因而波動”或者“公司因爲某某原因而破產”，見解之拙劣，令我不勝其煩。

新聞抑制思考。只有免受打擾才能集中注意力，進而潛心思考。新聞片段卻似乎是專爲打斷思考而設計。它們如同病毒，爲了一己之私分散人的注意力，令我們無法深入思考。更糟糕的是，新聞嚴重損害記憶力。記憶分兩種：長期記憶和短期記憶。前者潛力近乎無限，後者卻僅限於一定數量的不確切信息。短期記憶轉化爲長期記憶是大腦的一項瓶頸，但要形成對事物的理解，這一關不可逾越。如果這一過程中斷，我們什麼都學不會。新聞打斷注意力，從而弱化了理解力。網絡新聞的負面影響則更爲嚴重。2001年，兩位加拿大學者曾做過一項研究。他們發現，文章中鏈接越多，人們的理解力就下降得越快。原因何在?因爲一旦出現鏈接，大腦就至少得做出是否點擊的決定，這本身就是在分散注意力。可見，新聞是專門打斷思維的機器。

新聞就像毒品。隨着新聞事件發展，我們想知道接下來發生了什麼。腦子裏那幾百種故事情節令好奇心愈發難以抗拒，揮之不去。過去，科學家們認爲大腦內上千億神經元間的緊密聯繫大部分在我們成年之前就固定下來。而今，我們發現事實並非如此。神經細胞之間不斷打破舊聯繫，形成新聯繫，如同例行公事一般。接觸的新聞越多，大腦就要越發頻繁地啓動用於略讀和多重任務處理的神經迴路，忽略用於深度閱讀和專注思考的神經迴路。多數新聞讀者(即使他們曾經熱衷讀書)已經失去了理解長篇文章或書籍的能力，僅僅閱讀四、五頁，就無法集中注意力，且心生厭倦，煩躁不已。這並非因爲年齡增長或者事務繁重，而是因爲大腦生理構造發生了改變。

新聞浪費時間。如果你每天早晨、午餐時和睡覺前各花15分鐘讀新聞，工作中再不時抽出5分鐘來看新聞，不妨計算一下注意力分散和重新找回所耗時間。你會發現每週至少半天時間就這麼浪費了。新聞不再是稀缺商品，而注意力卻是。你不會不在乎金錢、名譽和健康，可爲什麼卻不把思維當回事呢?

新聞令人消極。絕大多數新聞裏講述的都是我們無法改變的事。每天反覆閱讀新聞，因無法左右現實而飽受折磨，我們就會變得消極。久而久之，或悲觀厭世，或麻木不仁，喜歡冷嘲熱諷，凡事聽天由命。這一現象在科學上稱爲“習得性無助”。也許這麼說有點言過其實，但是新聞消費至少在一定程度上導致抑鬱症流行。對此我並不感到意外。

新聞扼殺創造力。這是我要講的最後一點。已知信息限制了創造力。這也是爲什麼數學家、小說家、作曲家和企業家最有創造力的成績產生於年輕時期。他們腦海中有片廣袤無垠、人跡罕至的天地，在這裏他們可以大膽追求新奇想法。據我所知，那些有創造力的人，無論是作家、作曲家、數學家、科學家、音樂家、畫家，還是醫師、設計師或建築師，沒有誰是新聞“癮君子”。另一方面，大量極度缺乏創造力的人卻像吸毒一樣對新聞成癮。想墨守成規?看新聞吧。想別出心裁?還是別看了。

社會需要新聞行業，但不是現在這種局面。調查性新聞報道往往能切中要害，而我們的報道就應該發揮監督各類機構和揭露事實真相的作用。不過，重大發現不一定非得以新聞形式體現。長篇雜誌文章以及有深度的書籍也是上佳選擇。

近四年，我擺脫新聞的束縛，轉而選擇去看，去感覺。我的切身體會是：內心不再焦慮彷徨，可以深度思考而不被打斷，有了更多時間來洞察世事。雖得之不易，但物有所值。

[1]納西姆·塔勒布(1960–)，安皮裏卡資本公司創辦人，紐約大學庫朗數學研究所研究員，當前最令人敬畏的風險管理理論學者。

[2]確認偏誤指的是個人選擇性地回憶、蒐集有利細節，忽略不利或矛盾的資訊，來支持自己已有的想法的片面詮釋。