As I’m writing this, it’s the morning of Ash Wednesday. Over lunch today, I’ll drive down to church, get ashes put on my forehead and immediately delete all social media apps from my phone.

In 2020 I made the decision to give up social media for Lent, which happened to coincide with the start of COVID. Honestly, not being online all the time during a national crisis helped me keep my head together, not panic and stay a little more sane juggling everything else we had going on at that moment.

Right now, we are in another crisis moment and I’m giving up social again for Lent. The only exception is staying on Peak Community and LinkedIn (but on desktop only…taking mobile off) because they both fairly pertinent to my actual job and career growth.

I also don’t find myself seeing either of those places becoming a huge time suck for me. Say what you want about the platform but I’ve never doomscrolled LinkedIn.

How Do I Keep Up With The News?

Not being on social does not keep me out of the loop. In fact, I may be better informed as a result. I’m not seeing a collective knee jerk reaction to an event before all the facts have come into view. I face less mob consensus on complex subjects. There’s also way less panic. A lot less.

Most of my news diet when I’m not on social consists of newsletters and podcasts. With the exception of this last week I honestly don’t watch a lot of cable news.

Here’s a quick rundown of how I’ll stay up-to-date:

Morning Newsletters + Other Subscriptions

My morning routine consists of reading curated newsletters on the events of the day. Here are the ones I read fairly consistently:

Morning Brew: This does a great job of wrapping up some political news but a lot of business and entertainment news. It’s a quick read, informative and the tone is very funny a lot of times. It’s also free. You can test it out with my referral link here.

The Morning Dispatch: I’ve been a subscriber of The Dispatch for the last couple of years. It’s a right-leaning (but I wouldn’t say right wing) news source that does a decent job of calling balls and strikes. It’s mostly political news but it’s considerably easier on my mental health than scrolling Twitter or Facebook. Click here to check it out. The Dispatch has a couple of other newsletters in their stack (it is run off Substack) that I read but not always consistently.

Axios Atlanta: This morning newsletter is a good way to get quick bite-sized news about what’s going on in the city. It’s a bit ad heavy but this is also a free subscription so I’m not complaining. (link here)

Slow Boring: This is a really policy-heavy daily newsletter from former Vox guy Matthew Yglesias. It’s not an expensive subscription (maybe like a couple of dollars a month?) and does very extensive deep dives on policy proposals and ideas that are more from a center-left perspective. I admittedly don’t read this every morning because it’s so dense (it is called Slow Boring) but it’s fairly even-handed and thought out, even if you don’t agree with all his conclusions every time. Click here to check it out.

What a Day: This is put out by Crooked Media every evening but I typically don’t look at it until the following morning. It’s news from a progressive lens but I like reading it. I enjoy content from Crooked and The Dispatch equally. Click here to check that out.

UpFirst: This is actually a podcast from NPR, not a newsletter. However, it’s a good way to get the main news of the day in about 10-15 minutes and move on with your eay.

I do get some print and digital-only subscriptions on things that I read fairly consistently, even if it’s not totally baked into my morning routine including:

• The Atlanta Journal Constitution (digital + Sunday morning print)

• The Atlantic (print and digital)

• Wired (print and digital)

• The New York Times (digital only)

• The Washington Post (digital only)

• Harvard Business Review (print and digital)

• Apple News (app only but it pulls from a lot of sources)

Podcasts I Check Out

Honestly I listen to a LOT of different podcasts and am very sporadic about my rotation since I don’t really do a daily commute anymore. I’ll listen to some if I’m walking the dog or working on something a little more mindless but my podcast listening time has cut down quite a bit. As it turns out, it’s hard to do all that reading and keep up with a ton of podcasts with a full time job and two small children.

I won’t list it all here because it’s a huge library of podcasts and I don’t listen to every episode of them regularly. Topics range from politics (both left and right), tech, marketing, faith, comedy and a couple focused on The Atlanta Hawks. If you want a recommendation or want to know what I like right now, feel free to reach out.

I may do a podcast library post one day but not sure anyone cares about that as much. It’s like writing a post about what’s in your Netflix queue. Nobody cares.

Social Isn’t Necessary For News

Since I consume quite a bit of media throughout the week without even layering social media on top of it, it’s not that hard to stay in the loop. The key is to try and look at varying perspectives and think independently - which is much easier to do when you aren’t doomscrolling.

While the next couple of weeks will be an adjustment and I reach for my phone and thumb to a Twitter or Instagram icon that isn’t there anymore, I’m looking forward to getting my brain back.