本文摘要：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 dont really concern our lives and dont require thinking. Thats 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 mind.Today, 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.过去几十年，我们幸运地认识到过量饮食的危害（例如造成体重增加和糖尿病），进而开始转变饮食结构。

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 dont really concern our lives and dont require thinking. Thats 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 mind.Today, 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.过去几十年，我们幸运地认识到过量饮食的危害（例如造成体重增加和糖尿病），进而开始转变饮食结构。但是，大多数人并不知道新闻之于思维，如同糖类之于身体。

媒体命上的逸闻趣事、荒谬信息只不过与我们的生活无颇关联，但更容易解读，读书一起并不费脑。因此我们对新闻从未有过饱足感觉。

与读者书籍和长篇杂志文章（这些都必须边读书边思维）比起，无数仿佛在眼前的小段新闻更为更容易“毁灭”。对于思维，它们就像五彩缤纷的糖果。如今，新闻对于我们来讲如同20年前的食物一样，人们渐渐意识到，新闻有可能也是危害的。

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. Whats relevant? The structural stability of the bridge. Thats the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. But the car is flashy, its dramatic, its a person (non-abstract), and its news thats cheap to produce.News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads.So 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.新闻产生误导。下面借出纳西姆·塔勒布[1]的一个例子：一辆车驶出一座桥，结果桥塌了。

这则新闻的重点是什么呢？是这辆车，是车里的人—他从哪里来，要到哪儿去？（如果他幸免于难）这场事故经过是怎样的？然而，这些都无关紧要。什么才是至关重要的呢？是大桥的结构稳定性。

它隐含着根本性风险，而某种程度的风险还有可能不存在于其他桥梁。但是新闻中却弥漫着这辆车如何光鲜亮丽，遭遇如何扣人心弦的信息，甚至把它刻画成一个人物（非抽象化的）。

如此报导，毫无价值。新闻给大脑一张毕竟错误的风险地图，让我们背离了重点。正因如此，恐怖主义、雷曼兄弟倒闭以及宇航员这类主题被过度图形，而慢性精神压力、财政失责以及医护人员这类主题却报导严重不足。

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.面临媒体，我们尚能过于理性。看见电视里报导飞机坠毁，也不管这种概率实际有多大，人们很更容易就转变自己对此类风险的观点。如果你以为能通过内心的深思熟虑抵销这种影响，那么你拢了。

事实指出，银行家和经济学家纵然利用强劲的手段也无法弥补新闻造成的危害。唯一初衷是：与新闻几乎阻隔。

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 whats relevant. Its much easier to recognise whats 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 were 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.新闻无关紧要。在你最近一年中读者的上万条资讯中，很难找到这样一条新闻：因为读书了它，让你面对人生、职场或事业的根本性问题时作出了更佳的要求。原因在于，你所读的新闻与你自身毫无关系。人们很难分辨哪些新闻与自己有关系，但是很更容易告诉哪些是新的。

当今时代，关联度和新颖性是一对基本矛盾。媒体想要让人们实在新闻可以为之获取某种竞争优势，而许多人竟然信以为真。

一旦与新闻阻隔，我们就烦躁忧虑。而事实上，新闻只不会令人在竞争中正处于劣势。读书的新闻就越较少，你的优势反而就越多。

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, wed expect journalists to be at the top of the pyramid. Thats not the case.新闻无法解释世界。新闻不过是浮表面的水泡，现实世界深藏其下。大大累积事实有助你理解这个世界吗？很失望，无法。恰恰相反，确实最重要的事实并没报导出来。

它们不为记者注目，发展缓慢，却享有转变一切的强劲能量。你对杜撰新闻消费得越多，你对现实宏图的理解就越多。如果资讯就越多，经济就就越兴旺，那我们真该希望记者们稳坐金字塔顶端。

但事实毕竟如此。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.新闻毒害身体。它大大感受到大脑边缘系统。令人混乱的新闻使人体内糖皮质激素（皮质醇）呈圆形级联式黏液，造成免疫系统失调，诱导生长荷尔蒙黏液。

也就是说，使身体长年正处于精神压力之下。低糖皮质激素水平还造成消化功能损毁、（细胞、毛发和骨骼）生长缓慢、情绪紧绷，让人更容易病毒感染疾病。其他潜在副作用还包括：恐惧感、攻击性、视野狭小和麻木不仁。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 dont 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.新闻减少理解错误。

新闻为“证实偏误”[2]获取养分，而后者正是一切理解错误的源泉。沃伦·巴菲特曾说道“人类最擅长于将所有新的信息都说明一通，以保证先前的结论不不受影响。”新闻则是这种缺失的出卖，使我们过于自信，盲目冒险，错判时机。

此外，新闻还助长了另一种理解错误：新闻种族主义。大脑渴求“有意义”的新闻，即便这些新闻与事实相符。弱智记者在稿子中说明“市场因为某某原因而波动”或者“公司因为某某原因而倒闭”，看法之糟糕，令其我不胜其烦。

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 its worse than that. News severely affects memory. There are two types of memory. Long-range memorys 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.新闻诱导思维。只有免遭睡觉才能集中于注意力，进而潜心思维。新闻片段却或许是专门停下来思维而设计。它们如同病毒，为了一己之私集中人的注意力，令其我们无法了解思维。

更加差劲的是，新闻相当严重伤害记忆力。记忆分两种：长年记忆和短期记忆。前者潜力几近无限，后者却仅限于一定数量的不清楚信息。短期记忆转化成为长年记忆是大脑的一项瓶颈，但要构成对事物的解读，这一关不可逾越。

如果这一过程中断，我们什么都习会。新闻停下来注意力，从而弱化了理解力。

网络新闻的负面影响则更为严重。2001年，两位加拿大学者曾做到过一项研究。他们找到，文章中链接就越多，人们的理解力就上升得越慢。原因确有？因为一旦经常出现链接，大脑就最少得作出否页面的要求，这本身就是在集中注意力。

可见，新闻是专门停下来思维的机器。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 books.After four, five pages they get tired, their concentration vanishes, they become restless. Its not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous.Its because the physical structure of their brains has changed.新闻就像毒品。

随着新闻事件发展，我们想要告诉接下来再次发生了什么。脑子里那几百种故事情节令其好奇心越发无法排斥，挥之不去。

过去，科学家们指出大脑内上千亿神经元间的紧密联系大部分在我们成年之前就相同下来。而今，我们找到事实并非如此。神经细胞之间大大打破旧联系，构成新的联系，如同例行公事一般。认识的新闻就越多，大脑就要愈发频密地启动用作略读和多重任务处置的神经电路，忽视用作深度读者和专心思维的神经电路。

多数新闻读者（即使他们曾多次热衷读书）早已丧失了解读长篇文章或书籍的能力，意味着读者四、五页，就无法集中于注意力，且心生厌烦，焦躁深感。这并非因为年龄快速增长或者事务艰巨，而是因为大脑生理结构再次发生了转变。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 youre at work, then count distraction and refocusing time, you will lose at least half a day every week.Information 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?新闻浪费时间。如果你每天早晨、午餐时和睡前各花上15分钟读书新闻，工作中再行不时取出5分钟来看新闻，不妨计算出来一下注意力集中和新的寻回所耗时间。

你不会找到每周最少半天时间就这么浪费了。新闻仍然是匮乏商品，而注意力毕竟。你会不在乎金钱、名誉和身体健康，可为什么却不把思维当回事呢？News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we cant 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. Its a bit of a stretch, but I would not be surprised if news consumption, at least partially contributes to the widespread disease of depression.新闻令人消极。

绝大多数新闻里描写的都是我们无法转变的事。每天重复读者新闻，因无法左右现实而备受虐待，我们就不会显得消极。久而久之，或悲观厌世，或麻木不仁，讨厌冷嘲热讽，凡事听天由命。

这一现象在科学上称作“习得性绝望”。或许这么说道有点言过其实，但是新闻消费最少在一定程度上造成抑郁症风行。回应我并不深感车祸。

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 dont 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, dont.新闻助长创造力。这是我要谈的最后一点。未知信息容许了创造力。

这也是为什么数学家、小说家、作曲家和企业家最有创造力的成绩产生于年长时期。他们脑海中有片辽阔无垠、人迹罕至的天地，在这里他们可以大胆执着新奇点子。据我所知，那些有创造力的人，无论是作家、作曲家、数学家、科学家、音乐家、画家，还是医师、设计师或建筑师，没谁是新闻“瘾君子”。

另一方面，大量极为缺少创造力的人却像酗酒一样对新闻上瘾。想要墨守成规？看新闻吧。想要别出心裁？还是别看了。

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 dont have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too.社会必须新闻行业，但不是现在这种局面。调查性新闻报道往往能切中要害，而我们的报导就应当充分发挥监督各类机构和揭发事实真相的起到。

不过，根本性找到不一定不须以新闻形式反映。长篇杂志文章以及有深度的书籍也是上佳自由选择。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. Its not easy, but its worth it.将近四年，我挣脱新闻的束缚，转而自由选择去看，去感觉。

我的切身体会是：内心仍然情绪徬徨，可以深度思维而不被停下来，有了更好时间来洞察世事。虽得之不易，但物有所值。

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