Eight ways to regain control in the face of the avalanche of news

BarcelonaEvery day I receive, on average, 370 notifications on my mobile and 110 are from media outlets. If I didn't always have my mobile on silent, every four minutes a loud ding would sound and disturb my colleagues. Yes, I am a journalist and being informed is my obligation. But mine is not such an exceptional situation: more or less everyone receives more than a hundred alerts a day — and that's why it's now good manners to have the phone's sound deactivated.

Mobile alerts from media outlets are only one part of the avalanche of messages we receive each day, but many notifications from social networks and channels like WhatsApp are also about publications or comments on news. And, besides, there's the computer, the television, the radio... We are connected almost all day long and sometimes it overwhelms us. This guide offers you eight recipes to regain control and better separate the wheat from the chaff.

Choose what you want to know

The big tech platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X —and also Google— do not intend to help you stay informed, even if they make it seem so. Their goal is to attract you and keep you for as long as possible. They are more interested in you seeing their ads than those of a media outlet, for example. That's why they prioritize content that generates emotional reactions, regardless of whether it's relevant or not, and especially content that doesn't send you off their platform. They learn what you like and give you more of it: if cat videos seem adorable to you, you'll find lots of cats. And you'll see less content on other topics, becoming increasingly isolated in a tailor-made bubble.

The way to get out of this bubble is, instead of waiting for content to come to you, to go and look for it. And if what you want is information, the best way to do it is to choose one or more media outlets and follow them. You don't need to be connected all the time; choose your routine and dedicate one or more periods of the day to actively inform yourself.

Tame Google News

If you have an Android phone or use the Google app on an iPhone, Discover, Google's recommendation feed, probably chooses some of the news you read. It decides what to show you based on your search history, location, the articles you've opened, and even how long you spend reading each piece. Getting informed with Discover means letting Google choose for you and without knowing exactly how it does it, but you have a little room to tame it.

At the top right of each post, you will see three horizontal dots. Click on them and you will find three interesting options if used systematically: "Show less content like this", "I'm not interested in this topic" and "Don't show more content from". You can also tell Google which sources you trust. Google has created profiles for each publication and if you enter and click the follow button, their content will be highlighted more on your Discover feed. Here is the ARA profile.

Beyond Discover, Google also highlights news when you search for a trending topic. When this happens, next to the "Featured news" title, you'll find a button that allows you to choose your favorite news sources. You can also you can indicate it directly here. However, don't get your hopes up: no matter how much you train it, it remains an algorithm designed to retain you, not to inform you.

Choose media notifications

Install the apps of two or three trusted media outlets: one or two generalists and some specialized in the topics that interest you. Choose them according to your criteria, but it can help you choose to check if they separate information from opinions well, if they correct themselves when they make mistakes, if they cite the sources from which they get the data for their news, etcetera.

Once you have all the applications installed, configure your notifications well to avoid receiving too many. On iPhones you can even opt to receive a summary of notifications one or more times a day (Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary). Be careful, because if you have activated Apple Intelligence (which in Catalan, for now, does not work), you should know that the phone's AI can summarize media alerts itself —and make mistakes—.

With notifications, follow the rule of the less, the better; you're sure to receive too many already. If you don't believe it, check how many you receive each day (iPhone: Settings > Screen Time > See All Activity | Android: Settings > Digital Wellbeing > Dashboard > Notifications). When you want news, it's always better to go and get it yourself by opening a media outlet's app.

Beware of social media

If your gateway to the news is X, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, the algorithm decides what you know, and it's already clear that its priority is to keep you engaged. Within each network, however, you can regain some control. Follow specific journalists specialized in the topics that interest you, not just media accounts. On X and Bluesky, use lists: create one with the accounts you want to read and consult it instead of the general feed.

A tip that might seem strange: don't interact with posts you don't want to see, not even to criticize them. For the algorithm, an indignant response and a like are signals of interest that will make more content like what made you jump appear. Remember that most networks allow you to mute specific accounts and certain topics or keywords.

Reclaim a veteran technology

The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology is veteran on the internet, it's over a quarter of a century old, but it can help maintain a healthy information diet. It allows you to follow websites or sections of websites without having to visit them or depend on any social network to alert you to their publications. RSS readers are small programs — or web services — that gather all the articles from the sources you choose in one place, in chronological order and without algorithms. Most media outlets offer feeds RSS.

The free versions of Feedly or Inoreader or the light NetNewsWire, for example, they can be useful. That said: it's better to start with five or at most ten well-chosen sources than fifty that you won't read.

Take advantage of email

Newsletters work with the same logic as RSS readers: you choose them and you have to subscribe to them, there is no algorithm, but they arrive in your inbox. Some allow you to quickly catch up on the most important news, others are specialized in a topic, academic, institutional... and even author-based, by specific journalists. At ARA we have about twenty and it's worth exploring them.

Two tips: open a folder or a label so they don't mix with your main inbox and periodically check what you are subscribed to. If you receive too many, you will probably end up ignoring them all.

Watch out for generative AI

Artificial intelligence chatbots can be useful for understanding current events and getting the context you're missing, not so much for following them. They work well when you ask them about the background of a conflict or who's who in a court case, to explain scientific concepts, and to summarize documents. But to know what happened today, you still can't rely on them.

While it's true that ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity already search the internet and cite sources, they can state falsehoods with absolute certainty. In a recent study, journalists from 22 public media outlets in 18 countries evaluated over 3,000 responses in 14 languages and found that 45% contained at least one significant error. False attributions, lost context, distorted facts... When a chatbot quotes a fact, check it against the original source; when it links to an article, click on it, because often the summary does not say the same as the piece.

Always maintain critical thinking

Headlines in uppercase or with exclamation marks, which clearly seek to outrage or move you in some way, texts without authors and without dates, vague formulas like "knowledgeable sources" and "experts say"... are warning signs. And it's worth always having your skepticism alarm on. When in doubt, look for the same news on another independent source, which you consider trustworthy. Check the date — many old news items circulate as if they were new — and, if it's based on a striking image, upload it to Google Images or TinEye to do a reverse search and make sure it fits.

Skeptic Reader, a browser extension made by the Catalans Domestic Data Streamers, can also help you detect, with the help of artificial intelligence, biases and logical fallacies in any article.

Don't trust the platforms' verification systems: Meta and X's community notes are a battlefield between user groups, not an independent verification system. And be especially careful with instant messaging: a lot of disinformation circulates through Telegram and WhatsApp. Yes, even in the group of friends or family. Above all, be wary of those who explicitly ask you to forward them, those who say "pass it on".