I keep vaguely informed. But watching it 24/7 is unhealthy.

Know what’s going on, but don’t obsess over it. Because, as you rightly state, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. Why get upset over stuff you can’t control?

you look at the news where LA citizens fight against the orange clown, and read about ukranian soldiers bombing putler’s planes and your conclusion is “boohoo i cant do anything”?

the propaganda machine is trying to make you either alienate you from the news/politics, or radicalise you against the wrong crowd.

There are lots of options in between. You should be broadly aware of news, but do not need to be constantly exposed to them.

Maybe this article https://stallman.org/articles/dont-watch-covid-tv.html will help you, I am not sure whether I agree with all details of it, but the author is right about many other important things, so maybe it helps you.

To an extent. You need to keep an ear out but if you let it, it will make you miserable.

no

I emotionally withdraw myself from the politics. I do read the headlines and summaries but usually skip details that might upset myself.

You can handle what you can handle, and trying to drink from the firehose will only burn you out. Be as active in your community as you can, when you can, then take a break when you need to. Your own mental health matters, too.

I just limit how much news I get- basically just what pops up in my lemmy feed and a news show I watch a few times a week.

Being exposed to awful headlines 24/7 is almost definitely going to be rough on your mental health.

The most important thing is to protect your mental health so you can function and be resilient.

Being informed on the chaos of the world is far behind that in the priority list. The radius you can impact is tiny compared to the rest of the world and the constant feed of atrocities you get hit with every day. And you don’t have unlimited attention to spend. Focus on what’s around you and making that better. The rest is, for the most part, noise that you have no control over whatsoever.

Last year after some family tragedy and living comoletely alone for the first time, I stopped watching the news (really TV entirely) and I gotta say I am generally happier. I won’t weigh in on “right” or “wrong” in a moral sense because at the end of the day that is pretty subjective. But I will say that it might be right for you, and that it definitely was for me. The world’s gonna do what it does and it will keep going whether or not I watch, so I may as well restrict my attention to the things I care about and can personally control. I’ve recently started occasionally updating myself but only in brief.

There’s this concept called circle of influence, which is basically what things can you actually do about the things that you know.

99.9% of politics are outside of any of our individual circles of influence, And news profits immensely off of sharing every single bit of misery inducing sad and dreadful knowledge they can peddle.

So if it’s outside of your circle of influence, then feel free to completely fucking ignore it, because you can’t do a goddamn thing about it, and knowing about it only makes you sad.

Like the saying goes, where it is folly to be wise, ignorance is bliss.

That being said, if there are things that are local to you, or things that you or your friends are passionate about, that are inside of your circle of influence, take the energy you would have spent being sad about the stuff you can’t do anything about, and direct it to the things that you can do anything about.

It’s probably not healthy but it’s what I’m doing.

It’s either that or depression and 😯🔫

I know someone like this. She votes Trump because she genuinely doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on. Her family has always voted R so she continues to do so.

Strongly filter and limit the news you consumes. Do not spend hours watching or keeping up on it.

Do prepare yourself and your chosen community. Build relationships. Fix your life, body, finances. Get as ready as you can to catch yourself and those falling.

Do get into a group that tells you when local events are happening.

Do find joy.

Sometimes it feels that way, everything going on right now around the world seems to be the worst possible thing, and in the grand scheme of things you as an individual can’t do anything about it. However we as a collective can. Take some time for your mental health and then find a way you can help make real change. Just not becoming complacent is a good start, and I’m sure many people would be willing to help you take the next step when ever you figure out what your next step is.