Last night, I had my regular conversation with a friend who sees left wing conspiracy theories on Facebook and then goes into spasms of terror. While I sat on my front step in the balmy evening air, talking on my phone and watching the world go by, I explained algorithms, attention farming, and the endless scroll once again.

Then I told her my mantra: “I don’t need to know.”

I said I concentrate on being effective, rather than on wanting to be “informed.” Some rando on the FB feed who makes assertions in all caps is not a reliable source of information, and if she’s not willing to find someone who is reliable, she should ignore a lot of it. I suggested a number of organizations she could donate money to who are conducting legal action against the administration, and sent her the list of conditions that qualify people for COVID vaccination.

I felt a little hypocritical, because I too regularly descend into fear and insist on scrolling the eternal feed especially when I’m not feeling well, like yesterday.

I remember when being informed meant reading a couple of newspapers and watching network news. Those sources certainly weren’t reliable either, and as a child I was waiting for global nuclear war, but at least looking for news didn’t take over my whole life.

Which explains why, this morning, when I was doing my morning drive-by on my phone, I was saying, “Do I need to know this?” over and over with a cat in my lap, while I looked at my various sources of information.

Mostly I didn’t need to know, I realized.