Disable Your Phone's News Reader

My biggest accomplishment last week was figuring out how to turn off my Google News Reader. It came preinstalled when I bought my phone a few years. Before then, I’d sworn off the news. I let this Google thing go on as long as it did because I kinda became addicted to swiping and checking the updates. Also, because I search for a lot of food and beverage things, I’d get a lot of industry news and I convinced myself that this was valuable.

After reading the INFJ Writer, I remembered just how bad news consumption can be for a highly sensitive person (that’s me). It’s one of the reasons that I quit the news in the first place and avoid as much social media as possible. I let it creep back into my life with the Google News Reader, but after a week of quitting it, my creative output is back to a level that I’d forgotten I was capable of.

Overall, I feel lighter and just better. Every now and then, I catch myself swiping left on my phone and I realize just how much of a habit it had become. Now that I’m not wasting time swiping, scrolling, and reading, I’ve easily made more time for writing and thinking. I still plan to stay up to date on food and beverage industry news. For that, I went with an old school RSS reader of the food sites that I want to read. I plan to check that once a week or so.

If you’re ready to get rid of the sneaky news that your phones are supplying you with, here’s how to turn off the news feed on Android and iPhones.

Android
1. Long press on the background, as to change the wallpapers.
2. Select Home Settings.
3. Disable Display Google app.

iPhone
1. Scroll to the bottom of the news screen
2. Use the Edit button. Then press the red ⊖ to the left of News.
3. Select Done at the top right.