首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Less News, Much Better A)In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognized the hazards of living with an overabund
Less News, Much Better A)In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognized the hazards of living with an overabund
admin
2020-06-08
32
问题
Less News, Much Better
A)In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognized 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-colored 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 recognize how toxic news can be.
B)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 did he come from? Where did he plan 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.
C)But the car is flashy, it’s dramatic, it’s a person(non-abstract), and it’s news that’ s 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.
D)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.
E)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.
F)The point is: the consumption of news is irrelevant to you. But people find it very difficult to recognize what’s relevant. It’s much easier to recognize what’s new. The relevant versus the new is the fundamental battle of the current age. Media organizations 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.
G)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.
H)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, and bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitisation.
I)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.
J)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.
K)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.
L)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.
M)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. It’ s not because they got older or their schedules became more onerous. It’ s because the physical structure of their brains has changed.
N)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 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?
O)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, desensitized, 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.
P)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.
Q)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, and more insights. It’ s not easy, but it’ s worth it.
All cognitive errors originate from confirmation bias which gets driving force from news.
选项
答案
I
解析
题干意为所有的认知错误来源于“确认偏误”。而新闻为“确认偏误”提供动力。根据题干中的“cognitive errors”和“confirmation bias”可定位至I段第二句“News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors:confirmation bias.”,题干与该句意思相同。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/X1P7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Atimewhencommoninfectionscouldkillpeople.B、Atimewhennocountryisreadytofightantibiotics.C、Atimewhennonew
A、TakingexcessiveVitaminDisharmfultohealth.B、Manypeopledon’tknowtheimportanceofVitaminD.C、Olderpeoplearemore
Fertilizerusehasexploded,overloadingplantsworldwide,likelyalteringecosystemsfordecadestocenturies,scientistsrepor
Fertilizerusehasexploded,overloadingplantsworldwide,likelyalteringecosystemsfordecadestocenturies,scientistsrepor
Fertilizerusehasexploded,overloadingplantsworldwide,likelyalteringecosystemsfordecadestocenturies,scientistsrepor
A、WhenthePresidentandtheFirstLadydancedintheWhiteHouse.B、WhenanoldslavewasinterviewedaboutAmericanBlackHist
A、Hehastobe40percentsmarter.B、Hehastoworkforlongertime.C、Heneedstohaveabettereducation.D、Heshouldhaveso
A、Thelevelofeducationvariesaroundtheworld.B、Theeconomists’attitudestopopulationdiffergreatly.C、Thelivingstandar
LatinoyouthsneedbettereducationforArizonatotakefulladvantageofthepossibilitiestheirexplodingpopulationoffers.A
随机试题
子宫内膜癌诊断最主要、最有力的检查是
患者,女,38岁。右手被开水烫伤10分钟,来院就诊时,发现局部红润,无水疱,减轻疼痛应选择
市场营销学是从()传入我国的。
就法律关系的主体而言,债的主体()。
某企业设有设备修理作业,为了核算其成本,最适合选择的成本计算方法是()。
尽管电灯在发明后的一段时间里遇到了前所未有的阻力.大多数人都持观望态度而继续使用油灯。但是到了19世纪中后期,电灯最终还是战胜了油灯,成为欧美诸国主要的照明工具。电灯必然取代油灯的哲学依据是()。
某班分小组进行了摘草莓趣味比赛,甲、乙、丙3人分属3个小组。3人摘得的草莓数量情况如下:甲和属于第3小组的那位摘得的数量不一样,丙比属于第1小组的那位的摘得少,3人中第3小组的那位比乙摘得多。据此,将3人按摘得的草莓数量从多到少排列,正确的是:
政府考虑以两种方式补贴低收入家庭。一种是实物补贴(如食品补贴),另一种是现金补助。请画图回答以下问题:(2010年复旦大学856经济学综合基础)假设两种方式都耗费相同的财政收入,请解释:在什么情况下,被补贴的人会感到这两种方式无差异?
有钱并不意味着幸福。有一项覆盖面相当广的调查显示,在自认为有钱的被调查者中,只有1/3的人感觉自己是幸福的。要使上述论证成立。以下哪项必须为真?
在考生文件夹下,打开文档word2.docx,按照要求完成下列操作并以该文件名(word2.docx)保存文档。【文档开始】本周手机价格一览表厂家手机型号价格(元)摩托罗拉P76895
最新回复
(
0
)