I used to read the news all of the time. It seems so productive. It seems great because you are learning something you don't know about, very often (though not always since sometimes you seek out that which confirms your biases). It seemed most useful for conversations. Whenever I meet someone, I can have a conversation about the latest thing that we both read about. We have a common base to talk about something that we both know little about, so we are on equal footing. Also, we can talk about this interesting piece of news instead of the weather.

There are a few problems with this, though. Very often, the conversation just involves us repeating the details to the other person, who already read it and thus knows exactly the same details. We listen carefully, or at least pretend to, because that's what we're told to do, and then we nod and say, yea, and this to prove that we are intelligent and heard about the news already.

But this is dumb. It would be much better to have it explained to you, actually, fresh.

I had this experience recently. I had been working so hard on various projects, that I literally could not waste any time learning about things happening around me. Weeks later I found out about this oil spill somewhere. Movies came out, had big runs, and then went on DVD before I had heard about them. I had a conversation with someone the other day where he mentioned a piece of news, and I said I hadn't heard it. He looked at me dumbfounded. How could I not have seen this?

How? I was busy getting work done and learning. The funniest part is that he probably, not consciously, but somewhere in his mind it seemed as though I was not quite that smart. I could not keep up and converse on the latest topics. In fact, I could not, but topical fluency only correlates with intelligence, it does not define intelligence. Moreover, reading the latest news outside of your industry, for most professionals, is a time-killing activity that only signals intelligence. It is possible for someone to signal intelligence and trick someone into thinking that you know something without knowing anything actually useful.

One day, I saw that a friend of mine's friend was very into classical rock. He had vinyls upon vinyls hanging on his wall. I realized that I knew nothing about classic rock, or music in general. Classical rock would be a good place for me to start learning music.

So I read some Wikipedia articles, and I found a torrent with the "top 500" classic rock songs of all time. It started with Stairway to Heaven, moved on to Freebird, the Beatles, etc. I downloaded and listened to it from the top of the charts. I listened over and over, looked at the songs, the artists. In a few hours, I knew the top songs and artists and I could even recognize and sing along to some of them. The next time I met my friend's friend, I mentioned some of these songs, and we talked a bit about them, maybe argued about whether Freebird or Stairway to Heaven is better.

Anyway, years later, he mentioned some classic rock I had never heard of. He was surprised I hadn't heard of it. He thought I was really into classic rock and listened to it and followed it closely. I did not. I just learned a tiny tidbit, enough to signal intelligence in the music. I confessed that I knew next to nothing, not that I was trying to mislead at all.

News helps you signal intelligence in this way, falsely. It's much better to make the headlines, learn something deeply and create something. Make the news, don't read it.

Unfortunately, I still read the news all of the time. It is really hard to stop. I'm not sure why.