Giving up the news doesn’t mean giving up reading online. The problem usually isn’t the reading, it’s the feed: social media and news apps are designed to be infinite, so there’s never a natural point to stop.
An RSS reader fixes that. You choose the sites you actually want to follow, and new posts arrive in one tidy list. When you’ve read them, you’re done.
Why it helps
- It has an end. Once you’ve caught up, there’s nothing left to scroll.
- You choose what goes in. No algorithm deciding what outrages you most.
- No ads or autoplay. Just the articles, in the order they were published.
- It’s calmer. You check in when you want to, rather than being pulled back by notifications.
Readers worth trying
- Feedly: works on any device through a browser or app, with a free tier.
- NetNewsWire: free, simple and nicely made for Mac and iPhone.
- Reeder: a beautifully designed reader for Apple devices.
How to get started
Most blogs and magazines still publish an RSS feed. Paste a site’s address into your reader and it will usually find the feed on its own. Start small with a handful of sites you genuinely enjoy, and resist the urge to add everything. The point is a short, finite list.
If you need some ideas for what to follow, I put together a list of websites worth reading instead of the news.