My father had a simple ritual. At 6 a.m., he would read the New York Post and Daily News cover to cover. At 6 p.m., he tuned into the evening news — an hour of straightforward reporting, not commentary.

He formed his own opinions, and then he moved on. The news didn’t dominate company picnics or poker nights with the neighbors. A staunch Republican, he didn’t shun his Democratic relatives in Scranton. He stayed informed without being consumed.

That balance feels almost quaint today.

Instead of a daily digest, Americans now live inside a 24/7 outrage machine. We spend an average of two hours and 24 minutes on social media every day, check our phones 159 times a day and will collectively log 4 trillion hours online this year. Nearly half of us say we now watch more user-generated content

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