IS NEWS bad for you? This might seem an odd question to read in a newspaper column – stranger still coming from someone who is a bit of a news junkie.

My addiction has been worse, but I do still shake sometimes. Mostly my fix comes from newspapers: this one, The Guardian and The Observer, snippets from The Times – and the Daily Mail if I feel my blood pressure is getting sluggish.

Then there is the television (BBC Look North, the BBC News at 10pm and Channel 4 News sometimes) and Today on the radio.

You can add to that, assorted websites and Twitter, where nuggets of news stud the non-stop chat and self-reverential chunter.

The reason for the question is that a book by someone called Rolf Dobelli has been stirring things up. I say “someone called” because I had never heard of the Swiss novelist. Sorry about that, Rolf. It is safe to say that Rolf probably hasn’t heard of me either.

The Art Of Thinking Clearly suggests a number of ways in which news is bad for you. In a newspaper article to expound his theory, Rolf Dobelli argues that news misleads, that it is irrelevant, has no explanatory power (because it just bombards you with factoids), is toxic for your body and upsets your immune system, acts like a drug, inhibits clear thinking, wastes time and makes us passive.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t wish to agree with much of that. But for a moment let’s stick with this notion of news being bad for you.

One day last week, during a short lunch break, the national newspaper I read contained some very vivid reportage on the bombing of the Boston marathon. The account featured a horribly arresting photograph of an injured runner laid flat out on the blood-stained pavement, and contained a heart-breaking account of the eight-year-old boy, Martin Richard, who died in the blast.

Reading this brought a tear to my eye and a bubble of despair to my heart. So would I have been better off dipping into a novel or going for walk or doing something creative? Another Dobelli argument being that news stifles creativity.

Well, news can be disturbing, but so too, can life. If we cut ourselves off from news, if we close the door on what happens outside the tight circle of our own existence, bad things will still occur in the world, but we will avoid hearing about them.

While I can see why some people might find comfort in such isolation, in the end this is the world we live in, and surely we should want to know as much as possible about it.

Democracy requires that we are kept informed. So too, on a less lofty level does human nature itself: it’s good to know things, important to exercise our curiosity, to feel the knotty weave of life.

Of course it is possible to swallow too much news, much as you can consume too much of anything.

Modern life has increased the opportunity to overindulge, with snippets available on your phone, on social media sites and on those annoying non-stop news channels. I don’t like those at all, for they peddle a hyperactive lie that something important is always happening. It isn’t and too often what you are left with are limited facts stretched bubblegum thin. And like bubblegum, such news is liable to pop over your face.

But for all such concerns, we need the connections news provides. Just switch off occasionally.

•RAISED blood pressure alert: according to Monday’s Daily Mail, nurseries are breeding a generation of toddlers with no manners.

Education minister Elizabeth Truss told the paper that she condemned “chaotic” pre-schools that allow children to do what they want.

Too many nurseries were filled with toddlers “running around with no sense of purpose”.

Personally, I worry about all those foetuses curled up inside their mothers’ bellies. They lounge around all day with their feet up and don’t do a damn thing. How are they going to get on in the world with such a lazy start in life?

Follow Julian on twitter @juliancole5