Weekend Reflections – September 28, 2025

Dear Blog,

One of my primary motivations for starting this blog was to help myself to think more clearly. This week, I want to write about what I think of the news.

I hate following the news these days because it has morphed into something truly ugly. In my school and college days, my father and teachers told me that watching and reading the news was important for competitive exams and for increasing my general awareness. My father, in particular, advised me to focus on editorials and op-eds to help form well-reasoned opinions. I still follow this advice; although I don't read the newspaper often, whenever I do, I make a point of reading the opinion section.

I would divide my formative years into two distinct parts based on the evolution of news. The first was a time of simplicity. There were no 24/7 news channels or social media. We had cable TV, but my family was somewhat opposed to it. I remember watching the nightly Doordarshan news with my father. The news presenters were extremely graceful, and we preferred the English broadcast. Even on cable TV, news was confined to specific timeslots. Besides television, we read newspapers and magazines like The Tribune, The Indian Express, Outlook, and India Today. My father always praised The Hindu, and I don't disagree with him, though it wasn't easily available in North India at the time.

The second part is the current age of the 24/7 news cycle and social media. I believe that the non-stop relay of news has severely diluted its quality, and social media has turned everyone into a broadcaster, creating a chaotic environment.

I think what matters more than the news itself is context. Only with context can we make sense of what is happening. A recent example comes to mind. I saw a YouTube video where Yuval Noah Harari was asked for book recommendations, and one he mentioned was The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher. I haven't read the book, but I listened to a summary explaining how social media algorithms, designed to maximize user engagement, actively promote outrage and tribalism. Then, a few days later, I heard about political collapse and horrific violence in Nepal—sparked, lo and behold, by a social media ban. This news made immediate sense to me because I had the context. The book also detailed the role of social media in spreading harmful lies and fanning violence in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the U.S.

I’m not suggesting the violence in Nepal was entirely due to social media. Here, we need to distinguish between root causes and proximate causes. The root cause was most certainly the failure of the Nepalese government to offer its young, educated citizens jobs and a dignified life. Governments in societies experiencing a 'youth bulge'—where a high percentage of the population, say 20 percent or more, is crammed into the 15-24 age group—must address unemployment and underemployment seriously. Otherwise, they are simply walking on thin ice.

I have much more to write about, but I will wrap up here, as it's already past midnight and I have an early commute tomorrow. However, I have kept my commitment to write at least once a week.