Do you feel overwhelmed trying to stay up to date with the latest tech news?

Published on 2022-08-24. Modified on 2023-10-21.

Even though the technology related news media isn't about inhibiting thinking or controlling the masses, like the regular news media, the technology media is mostly using the same tactics by creating sensational and story-formattet junk. You can spot a bad technology media (or any news media) by the low level of investigative journalism and the high level of sensationalism it contains.

If you try to follow all the latest news within technology, whether hardware related or software related or security related, etc., you can easily spend 3-5 hours a day reading through all the information, even if you only skim. Add social media to the mix, with people sharing links to this and that, and you will spend your entire day shoveling through all the crap.

The fact of the matter is that most of the technology news media is not about technology, it's all about getting you to feel overwhelmed and out of control. By doing so they make sure that you keep coming back for more in a desperate attempt to keep up with it all. They know just how important it is for you, as a tech person, to stay updated, and as such, they keep adding more and more irrelevant "news" to the media. Unless you're really careful, you end up with the impression that something new and important is happening on a daily basis, which you will miss unless you come back. However, the truth is that only rarely does there happen something in tech that is even worth mentioning.

Moving from navigating the road in a vehicle with physical maps to electronic maps and GPS was a true and life changing technological improvement. So was the Internet, the invention of the mobile phone, and the change from single core CPUs to multi-core CPUs.

But just think back. In the past say ten years, what changes and innovations have had a real and true life changing impact on you? I am sure you can think of something, but I am also pretty sure that nothing has happened on a monthly or weekly basis that was so important that you absolutely had to know about it at that very moment.

I have worked in news media, doing coding, database and system administration, and I can tell you this, they mostly only care about how to keep you hooked and "addicted" to their media.

They need to provide a steady stream of information in order for you to come back on a daily basis and they do this by writing mostly sensational garbage and irrelevant stuff.

Intel has just done this. Google now did that. Microsoft has just done this. Oracle didn't do anything. New iPhone 45 has arrived. Android version 600 has been released. Hackers cracked foo website. This and that company has been hit by ransomware. X has increased by 33% while Y has decreased by 78%. Bla bla bla bla bla. Wow and wow.

While it is true that in the field of technology, everything is going fast, that is not the reason you feel overwhelmed. You feel overwhelmed because of the amount of information you are served by the technology news media - the majority of which is completely useless.

In the past, the reporters who worked with technology, did thorough work when they planned the next release of a magazine. For the most part, articles where researched, interviews planned, and some articles contained detailed tutorials or examples, etc. It was about bringing relevant information to the people working in the industry, or people who simply had an interest in technology.

The good news is that some computer and technology magazines still do that. They have not all become sensationalistic. And one or two of those magazines are all you ever need to read to stay informed.

The magazines have limited printing space (this goes for PDF, EPUB, etc. as well), as such they are more careful when they decide what to write about. This means that they have done all the news sorting for you, bringing you only the most relevant news. Even the ads in the magazine are (mostly) out of the way, yet still relevant to people reading that specific magazine (just like ads in Google search used to be before Google became greedy).

The best magazines are those that are released on a monthly basis. Some magazines are released on a 14 days basis, but you don't need those.

I will not recommend any specific magazines because your mileage may vary, but I will advice you to go magazine hunting. If you live in a place where there is a public library that has a lot of tech magazines, then this is the easiest place to shift through all of them in order to figure out, which one(s) you like the best. Even if the public library only have outdated magazines (a couple of months doesn't matter, even a year is still fine), you can still learn the difference between them and decide what to buy in the future.

Good articles are written by people with a true interest in the topic, hence they have done their research and are not just parroting what they have read elsewhere.

If you are hooked on online media like Reddit TechNews, Ars Technica, or even Hacker News try - as an experiment - to boycott these for a couple of months. Find one or two magazines and read those instead. See how that makes you feel and how it affects you life. I can almost guarantee you that you will notice an increase in your productivity, a much better and more positive mood and mindset, and you may even have learned something new and truly useful!