I’ll be honest, I don’t even want to read articles anymore. Its just crazy cabinet nominees every time. Wars happening. Nothing I can control. I just post something sarcastic or jokes in the comments. The only thing I care is if a hurricane is headed in my direction.
Y’all actually read all this shit? How does anyone have the energy?
Depends on the article. Political or most other real world news, probably gonna either just read the headline and any comments. If it’s something that interests me, I feel more compelled to read it, though.
I read the headline, I read the discussion. If the discussion convinces me to read the article myself, I will. If there’s broad consensus, generally it’s not worth my time to confirm what I’ve learned already.
I do this for several reasons:
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Ads. Even with ad blocker the frequent text breaks are exhausting.
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Overeditorialization. I want the facts, not a narrative. I get why that’s the way the information is presented, but my time is limited and I’m not into it. Same reason I don’t really like (non-nature) documentaries
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Perspective. The author has their own unitary perspective, and I prefer to consume multiple perspectives on an issue so I can explore the problem/solution space.
If it’s short, data heavy, and plays nice with Simplified Mode then I’ll read it real quick, but the less navigation I have to do to obtain information the better.
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I have adhd
Personally I wish there was a way to filter out all the comments by people who haven’t read the article.
I read the article if I want to talk to someone about it or make a comment, otherwise I read headline, then go to the comments.
I read the article if when I open the link, I am not immediately slapped in the face with ads that aren’t blocked by uBlock Origin, an ad block blocker, or a paywall. But I’m not also not reading multiple articles on the same exact topic just because they come from different outlets. 9 times out of 10, they’re exactly the same but with slight variation on verbiage because they all took the same original information from the actual original source and just re-worded it.
I try to, when I have the time, but I don’t sweat it if I don’t, I just try to avoid forming too many opinions about the topic.
Also, a good chunk of the time I try, I get paywalled. Which I can usually bypass if I’m on PC, but that’s not really feasible on mobile.
Props to all the heroes copying the article into the post, or pointing out when the headline is misleading.
I don’t, I just try to avoid forming too many opinions about the topic.
The best way to handle most things in life. Do what you want, just always assume you know nothing about a topic.
I didn’t read your question but “yes”
But actually, I don’t for political stuff because it is so freaking depressing, and you can’t affect it much.
I love reading science articles though!
My conservative inlaws read headlines aloud like it’s a fact without reading the article.
And make up a scenario about the headline. Its like angry improve for distressing yourself.
Sometimes. I’ll often read the comments to get the highlights, but I’ll also read the article if it interests me or when I need to know more details.
Same here but with some tuning:
I read comments very carefully. If there isn’t a summary bot I don’t trust comments as true anymore. If the publisher prevents reader mode (firefox) or requires either a subscription or non-essential cookies: Keep your secrets.
Also, if the headline is too hard a clickbait, I skip it as well.
And let’s be honest: 90% of news articles don’t contain more relevant information for me than the headline.
“Politician said X” has almost never any effect on my life.
I just scrolled through the front page of Der Spiegel. The first 10 articles are speculations about campaign decisions, analyses of things already known, and opinion pieces of some mildly knowledgeable people.
Yeah, that’s mostly irrelevant. Yes, some background would be nice, but I don’t have time to read about everything that isn’t of consequence for me anyway.
Hell a lot of them don’t contain accurate information either. Especially AI slop.
I mostly read the headlines since most articles these days are written to fill a length quota and info is sparse. Most articles are now full of fluff.
Just the headline so I can ensure I misinterpret the context fully when drunkenly ranting at my mates about it.
Both. It depends on how interested I am in the headline and whether there is a paywall.
RSS reader -> skim headlines -> open the full article from maybe 10% of the headlines -> skim the first paragraph to see how clickbaity the headline was -> read through the full article on maybe 50% of those.
And this isn’t just global and political news, I follow science, tech, sports, and other niche interest news this way too.
Some days I just listen to NPR’s Morning Edition podcast snips. Double speed. Skip over any with a title that doesn’t interest me.
And finally, I discard any completionist feelings. My RSS feed will never be all caught up. My podcast queue will never be empty. That used to bother me but I have some tools to manage my stress over it a bit better now.
I just read the comments.
