Slow News / Good News: Inside the Flick-Scroll Feed That’s Hijacking Your Soul!
Forget about breaking the internet. Be worried about breaking your brain. Escape the flick-scroll rabbit hole — and reclaim peace through intentional living.
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Info-Anxiety Is a Feature, Not a Bug!
You’ve heard the saying you are what you eat — but I’d argue we are what we think about, what we pay attention to. Thought doesn’t just arise from nowhere; it assembles itself from fragments: headlines glimpsed between subway stops, posts skimmed at traffic lights. Our informational diet is shaping us — and most of us are gorging on noise.
In a world where the dominant rhythm is speed, most media consumption now resembles a blur. We’re exposed to more “news” than any generation in human history, yet somehow understand less. Awareness is measured in quantity, not quality. The inbox never empties. The feed never ends. And we keep scrolling, despite the creeping suspicion that it’s all making us just a bit more fragmented, anxious, and maybe even less human.
But what if the problem isn’t just the content?
What if the tempo itself is toxic?
The Birth of Speed: Enter the 24-Hour News Cycle
The real acceleration began long before Instagram, TikTok or X. It started with cable television.
In 1980, CNN launched with the then-radical idea that news could be continuous. Twenty-four hours a day. Around the clock. No need to wait for the morning paper or the six o’clock bulletin. Information could be updated live — and endlessly.
At first, it seemed like a triumph for transparency. But the economics quickly revealed a darker logic. News needed to be produced not when something important happened, but constantly — even when nothing did. The result was a seismic editorial shift: from journalism as verification, to journalism as performance.
Fear, crime, outrage — these had stamina. They filled time, kept eyeballs, and rarely required follow-up.
The phrase “If it bleeds, it leads” became less a cynical joke and more an editorial strategy. Catastrophe became choreography. Analysis was replaced with live speculation, panellists with pundits, facts with feelings.
And the public?
We stopped waiting for updates and started living inside them.
But filling 24 hours doesn’t just demand more stories — it demands faster stories. News had to be produced on demand, even when there was little to report. The result was an industrial shift inside newsrooms that has proven far more corrosive than many realise.
Original reporting gave way to aggregation. Press releases replaced reporting. Journalists were given quotas. Speed trumped substance.
This is what I’ve long called Churnalism — not journalism, but the mass production of regurgitated content.
It clogs the public discourse with half-baked articles, hollow analysis, and rehashed updates designed to simulate information rather than provide it.
Churnalism isn’t simply bad reporting. It’s the absence of reporting altogether.
The greatest casualty of the 24-hour model wasn’t accuracy, though that’s certainly suffered. It was memory. When news is constant, nothing lingers. Every scandal is replaced by another. Every tragedy is overwritten before the mourning ends.
When The “Feed” Ate Google
If the 24-hour cycle created the demand for constant news, smartphones ensured we’d never be without supply.
There was a time — not so long ago — when looking something up meant sitting at a desk. You typed queries into AltaVista, Yahoo or you “asked” Jeeves, or later, Google. You had to intend to find information. It was an act, not a reflex.
But once the iPhone arrived, information stopped being something we sought. It became something that sought us.
We don’t search anymore — we flick-scroll. We don’t choose — we receive.
The flick-scroll became the primary gesture of our era, a nervous tic disguised as curiosity.
And while we gained convenience, we lost context. News wasn’t a destination anymore — it was a presence. A constant hum in the pocket. An ambient anxiety generator.
Manufactured Crisis: The Cost of Emotional Acceleration
The emotional tempo of modern media mirrors its technological one. As content speeds up, so does feeling — and not in a good way.
We live under a regime of engineered agitation. News is no longer about information — it’s about activation. Each headline is written to elicit outrage, fear, urgency.
The model is no longer ‘inform the public.’ It’s ‘trigger the limbic system’.
And while this is profitable, it’s also exhausting.
The more we consume, the more we tense up. Our bodies keep the score: raised cortisol, shallow breath, digital fatigue masquerading as attention.
The reasonable voice — the nuanced view, the considered take — is drowned out.
We don’t just argue about facts.
We argue about whether facts even exist.
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The Agenda Behind the Outrage
It would be naïve to think all this chaos is unintended.
The outrage economy isn’t accidental — it’s cultivated. Because in a media landscape ruled by clicks, outrage travels furthest. Anger boosts engagement. Misinformation outperforms correction. And platforms profit from the churn.
Viral is the goal. Clickbait is the tactic. Outrage is the outcome.
But it’s not just tech companies that benefit. Politicians, influencers, activists — and yes, even some journalists — have learned to game the system.
A political issue becomes a merch drop. A tragedy becomes a marketing campaign. A protest becomes a platform.
There’s always someone with something to gain from your attention.
And the more emotionally compromised you are, the easier you are to steer.
When Flick-Scroll Becomes the Story
We don’t “read the news” anymore. We experience it through flicks, loops, reels. You liked sadness? Here’s 30 more flavours!
Even I — a veteran journalist — wasn’t immune. Despite decades in media, I fell prey to the infinite scroll. Not for headlines, but for the hit. The duration. The algorithmic drip-feed.
Eventually, I did something once unthinkable: I deleted every social account. Facebook remains — but only to stay in touch with family. For now.
It wasn’t a detox.
It was an exit.
Beyond Panic: The Case for Slow News
Once the background noise quietened, I realised how deeply I’d internalised the speed of news.
No article was long enough. No headline could hold my attention past the first swipe.
But in the silence, I found mental space.
I began reading slowly. Printed editions. Weekend reviews. Long-form essays. At first, it felt awkward — like learning to chew again after years of gulping.
But soon, it became clarity.
Why the Blue Zones Don’t Flick-Scroll
Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones (Netflix) hit differently. Not just because of the olive oil, Minestrone di Verdure con Fregola, or Pane Frattau (if you're not familiar with those two amazing dishes from Sardegna, Italy, search them out, make them, and revel!) — but because of the calm.
Living “Blue Zone” meant news arrived slowly. Over meals. Through people. It wasn't content. It was context.
That simplicity hit like a slap. Not because it's quaint — but because it’s sane.
I now live on the Pacific Coast in Chiba Prefecture — not Tokyo.
Life here is measured by the tides at Onjuku Beach and the rice-growing season, not news alerts. It’s rural rhythms and editorial rewiring. Each Sunday, the FT Weekend lands in my letterbox. During the week, I skim the FT digital print edition on my tablet, check Reuters headlines, and browse a few favourite Substacks.
No app notifications. No ambient panic.
I use my favourite Bortoletti glass pen. I handwrite letters in ink. Seal them in wax. Send them by post. It’s as absurd as it sounds — and as satisfying.
This, to me, is Slow Media.
Not a brand. Not a style.
A stance.
The Economy of Distraction
The media isn’t fast because of curiosity. It’s fast because of capitalism.
Your attention is being sliced, packaged, and sold in real-time, like tuna at Tsukiji.
What’s the result?
A kind of cognitive strip mining.
Even grief is monetised now.
This isn’t journalism. It’s marketing dressed as concern.
Fatigue Is the Point
We like to think we’re informed. But really, we’re saturated. Numb.
Emotionally exhausted.
Distraction is not the side effect of modern media — it is the product.
A distracted public doesn’t organise. It doesn’t resist. It doomscrolls into apathy.
And who benefits from that?
Memory, Meaning, and the Flattening of Everything
When everything is content, nothing is sacred.
A genocide becomes a hashtag.
A revolution becomes a trending sound.
Fast media doesn’t just erode our patience. It erodes meaning.
Slow Media respects memory.
It assumes you might want to read something twice.
It believes meaning takes time.
The Biology of Slow Thought
This isn’t just cultural — it’s neurological.
Research confirms: deep reading activates empathy. Synthesis. Thought.
Skimming and flicking? Not so much.
Fast content lights up the limbic system. Pure dopamine. Pure reaction.
Slow reading isn’t a luxury.
It’s medicine.
Who Are We When We’re Not Reacting?
When I left the feed, I didn’t just regain attention. I regained discernment.
I stopped thinking in bullet points. I started thinking in paragraphs.
Slow Media is not a retreat. It’s a return — to agency, to clarity, to care.
How to Practise Slow Media
This isn’t about purity. It’s about pattern.
Turn off alerts. If it matters, it will find you.
Read one long piece a day — FT Weekend, The Atlantic, or a good Substack (like The Fushigi Times).
Engage with the spiritual. Pick up a Bible. Read a few Proverbs. Ponder…
Write about what you read. Just for yourself. Letters. Notes. Clarity.
Delete what numbs you. Apps. Feeds. People.
Slow Media isn’t self-denial.
It’s self-direction.
Read Slowly. Think Clearly. Live Intentionally.
Fast media produces reactivity.
Slow Media builds readers — and citizens.
People who can sit with complexity.
People who think in context.
Who resist the reflexive.
These are the people who rebuild worlds.
The Future That Still Exists
We’re not doomed. Not yet.
We can still choose journalism that investigates instead of entertains.
It’s not mainstream — but it’s growing. Quietly. Intentionally.
Slow Media isn’t just possible.
It’s necessary.
And it starts with what you read today. Maybe it starts for you with this very substack publication!
We were told faster was better. That knowing everything all the time was wise.
It’s not.
It’s noise.
Slow Media says: read less, but read better. React less, think more.
Because the old truth still holds.
Maybe now more than ever:
Good things — including good news — take time.
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Angelino Schintu is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, and filmmaker based in Japan. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Fushigi Times — an independent Slow Media platform offering bold, reality-grounded perspectives on global affairs, cultural explorations, and creative thought.
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