Absolutely. I second the heavy use of blocking communities using an app. If you still want exposure to news you can consider downloading a couple news apps and checking them once or twice a day. You will still see the shittier aspects of humanity but at least you can do it when you choose to.

Kind of feels like a side effect of a US election year. But I don't disagree.

Always plenty to be gloomy about, I tend to block those communities though, not because I'm in denial about it, I already know to vote Green or Democratic for like my whole life, you don't need to convince or sway me.

So go and be the change you want to see. Lemmy is not so big that you can't make a difference.

Omg YES. I am so tired of seeing bad news all the time, all it does is ruin your day. I come to Lemmy to unwind and escape reality, to look at some funny memes and forget my life for a bit, not to be constantly reminded of all the horrible things happening in the world.

Yes, me too. I've unsubscribed from the political and news communities, several weeks ago. That helps. And I don't think it's specifically a Lemmy problem. It's everywhere. And since lots of people use Lemmy as a news feed, we get all the doom posts in our timelines.

The beauty of kbin/lemmy is how easy it is to block content you don't want to see, so either block the users who mostly post doom, or the news/politics communities as a whole. If you then still want to scroll news for a limited time, browse in incognito or from a secondary account ¯\(ツ)/¯

You'll die one day

Yes. I have taken to blocking communities because my energy and mood is a precious resource I need to protect. I know already the world is in a bad place.

Unsub from news and politics first and foremost. If something important happens, you'll hear about it. Just make sure you keep some open channel (IRL!) to keep an ear in.

Then start focusing on communities where people recognize each other's names. You can either be big, or you can be intimate. Trying to approach tiny Lemmy like it's big anonymous Reddit is going to be disappointing. You're missing an opportunity if you're not engaging with familiar names.

Fear and anger sell, which is why so much news media is focused on things that make people angry and afraid. Same with politicians. This place isn't inherently trying to push anything (not the way the media does), but it certainly reflects the stuff that people are talking about.

I've blocked so many communities and users, that I'm scared to look at how big my list is...

Nah, I kinda like it, keeps my mornings sufficiently spicy and grounded. I tend to be more upbeat when I get too in my shit, and so it's mostly better if I can browse around horrible doomposts and depressing shit when I need it. Certainly, I tend to like it better than cheerful nonsense that tends to either amount to played out references, or tribalistic bashing, though, that's not to say doomposts can't really be in that same vein either.

In any case, you're gonna see them because they're more likely to survive and get attention. This is good, for bringing awareness, maybe bad for explanatory power or sustained activism, but it strictly has more survival power in the attention economy, when compared to normal posts.