2/3
I was catching up on some reading yesterday and came across an article titled Why I Still Use RSS. I quietly celebrated because I, too, still use RSS and am used to the blank stares I get when I answer the question "where do you get your news from?" For me, the thought of getting news from social media, especially over the last few years, feels borderline irresponsible. Knowing where your news is coming from—who and what those sources are—is more important than its ever been. Marc, the author of that article concisely points that out:
I enjoyed the freedom to see sources as I wanted, the flexibility to move to a new reader if I wanted, the complete lack of advertising. It was hard to not fall in love with the service.
The knock on benefit of selecting where your reading comes from is insulating yourself from much of the noise social media platforms need to expose you to to reach their goals. Again, Marc points this out:
By selecting only the sites, blogs, creators etc. that I had a serious interest in, I could effectively remove the negative effects of social media and excessive online usage from my life.
The algorithms that power the social apps and sites we frequent have made it exceedingly easy to fall down rabbit holes as they suggest related content. In our endless quest to squash boredom, scrolling to the next recommended post or letting the next video auto-play feels nice because we don't have to do anything. It's low friction, which generally makes for a better user experience. It's worth noting that effective UX design doesn't necessarily imply good intention from a product—something a different Mark grappled with recently and the folks at Growth.Design profiled in an Instagram case study. A little bit of friction isn't a bad thing when what we consume contributes to our beliefs and identity. Clearly, I feel a certain way about this but I'll spare you my soapbox speech.
Instead, I'll simply suggest that you spend some time thinking about where your news comes from. You don't have to go full retro internet, download an RSS reader, and meticulously curate your sources (though I do recommend it). Instead, a simple gesture like popping open Apple/Google News or visiting publications directly the next time you want to know what's up in the world will help you start to separate social media consumption from news consumption. It's a baby step, sure, but that's usually the better way to make lasting change.
If you do like the idea of taking better control of what you read and don't mind spending some time setting that up, look into RSS. I've been using Feedly to store and fetch my feeds since Google Reader shut down in 2013; it's a fine place to start. Feedly also allows you to read your feeds on the web and has apps for just about every platform. One of the nice things about RSS is you have a lot of choice when it comes to reading. There are a host of apps that just display your feeds and let you read the content within—Reeder being my personal choice. I wouldn't worry about a separate reader until you're convinced this whole RSS thing is your thing. Most publications you come across will have RSS feeds as well as most blogs, especially if they've been built with popular software like Wordpress. You may have to look in the footer for a link to their feed, however. When I can't find a link to a site's feed, I try adding /feed or /rss to the end of their home page url. I'm often surprised how consistently that works and find myself wondering if those sites even know they're syndicating a feed.