Taking a break from the news is critical for self-care during the quarantine.

The argument

Avoid obsessing over endless Coronavirus coverage. Freeing up your day from work or social obligations gives you plenty of time to obsess, and if people have a tendency to consult Google for every itch and sneeze, one may be over-researching the pandemic as well. Choosing only certain credible websites (who.int or cdc.gov is a good start) for a limited amount of time each day (perhaps two chunks of 30 minutes each) will be in one's best interest during this time. Try and maintain some semblance of structure from the pre-quarantine days. For those individuals with children, sticking to a routine might be easier; however as you work from home, it could be tempting to fall into a more lethargic lifestyle, which could lead to negative thinking. Wake up and go to bed around the same time, eat meals, shower, adapt your exercise regimen, and get out of your PJ’s. Do laundry on Sundays as usual. Not only will sticking to your normal routine keep you active and less likely to spiral, but it will also be easier to readjust to the outside world when it’s time to get back to work. This will help you survive spiraling negative thoughts about this uncertain time, instead of reading too much anxious news.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There’s also a sizable minority who are finding themselves cannot get avoid of the great amount of consumption of news for professional reasons. Journalists, communications professionals, government officials, doctors, scientists, and disinfectant manufacturers are among those having to stay on top of daily comments, trends, and data. For many, this is happening while they are working from home and managing blurred boundaries between their work and private lives. Therapist John-Paul Davies says a number of his current clients (who he now sees digitally) are those who “suddenly have to be on top of the latest developments” or are spending a lot of time speaking to those who’ve been hit hardest by the coronavirus. “Hearing those stories, you're bound to be affected by them, you know, particularly if you care about other people, and [for] a lot of journalists that’s the reason for doing it. They're interested in other people's stories.”

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Not disputed for many people, but the premise assumes a uniform experience. Time freed from commuting and social obligation was not the general condition — key workers, parents supervising home schooling and people who had lost work faced the opposite pressure — and for some, following developments closely supplied a sense of control rather than anxiety. [Rejecting P2] The prescription is stated more precisely than the evidence supports. Two thirty-minute blocks a day is a figure with no study behind it, and the research linking media consumption to distress is largely cross-sectional, so it cannot separate news causing anxiety from anxious people seeking news. Restricting to official sources also carries a cost the premise does not weigh, since guidance changed repeatedly and was itself contested. [Rejecting P3] "Critical" is stronger than the premises support, and the counter-argument names the group for whom it cannot hold: journalists, clinicians, officials and communications staff had to stay current as a condition of their work. For them the useful advice concerns boundaries and decompression rather than abstinence — which suggests the real recommendation is about how news is consumed rather than about taking a break from it.