If you watch the news, you might think that we are all doomed and that the apocalypse is nigh!
All too often media is pointing to the outlying disasters, disease outbreaks, famines, water shortages.
And yes there are unfortunately crises. And yes I write a lot about the upcoming economical transitions from knowledge economy to idea economy and how that will be a brutal transistion for many people.
But I remain an optimist about the future... overall as a human race in fact we aren't doing badly, most of the trendlines are positive.
But how can that be, if you watch the news you don't hear anything about things getting better. Why is that?
Through a Darwinistic process of 200 years of media publications, media editors have figured out what works.
To get attention of readers, it boils down to "If it bleeds, it leads" .
Here is more info on why this is:
EDIT wrong link;
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media
Well it helps to know a bit about the Limbic system and the Amygdala: this is a small part of our brain which largely in charge of our emotions. We like to think of ourselves as rational beings but in fact much of our reaction in day to day life is influenced by this emotional system.
The amygdala is responsible among other things for our fear and anxiety response. It is our survival mechanism, making us hyper alert for dangerous situations.
While in nature this is very useful, it creates very vivid memories of dangerous situations which helps us survive when we see similar situations again, in modern life this fear response is being hijacked.
The media is not in the business of informing people, the name of the game is getting attention. A shortcut which the media constantly exploits is this biological preference for bad news, because they understand that to get attention, negative news beats positive news every time. It provokes a much stronger emotional reaction and will keep our attention.
The last 2 decades, this Darwinistic process has ever increased, because now there are much better metrics about what "gets clicks". As a result, most of the media has become a constant stream of "bad news" which is playing with our "availability heuristic".
"If you don't watch the news you're uninformed, if you are watching it you are dis-informed..."
Heard it from Denzel Washington, probably quoting someone else but sounded pretty deep for an actor.
What we are becoming through this focus on news headlines is ignorant about what is really happening in the world.
I want to give some antidote sources about this "the sky is going to fall" narrative.
If you find these things over optimistic, take that as a sign that you have been programmed by the media already.
You might have to try a media detox :
To give some idea about how we are becoming ignorant about the world I highly recommend watching this video of Hans and Ola Rosling about how not to be ignorant about the world.
Some shortcuts rules to recalibrate your intuition when guessing about the world and its development :
- Most things are improving
- Most extreme poverty is being eradicated, yes there is inequality but the people at the bottom overall are doing much better
- First social progress and then nations become rich: it is a fallacy to think that social progress comes only with wealth, it's the other way around
- "Sharks kill few" assume that most of the things on the news that are pointed at as dangerous, terrorism, shark attacks, accidents, natural disasters are actually not that important in the large scheme of things. Yes of course that depends on where you are, but remember that most headlines are as likely as winning the lottery.
Here is some more antidote if you are feeling pessimistic...
We still think about world population as exploding and that there will be a food crisis:
In fact the world population is going to stabilise:
This one is longer (1 hour) but well worth watching
Sure there are major challenges. Here is Hans Rosling again, talking about the refugee crisis and inequality.
But our ability to invent new technology to deal with those challenges is not to be underestimated.
Here are some recommendations from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media
News media needs to return to a sense of proportion, conscience, and, most important, truth-telling. Until that happens, help inoculate yourself against feeling overwhelmed by doing the following:
- Consider limiting your exposure to media. Give yourself a set time once or twice a day to check in on local and global happenings.
- Consider choosing print media for your information gathering rather than visual media. This can reduce the likelihood that you get exposed to emotionally laden material. Home pages on the internet can give you an overall sense of what's going on, as can headline news channels that update stories on the hour.
- Remember that you have the power to turn off the remote, link out of a website or change the radio station. Don't let yourself be passive when you feel media is overwhelming you.
- Know that other people will have a different tolerance for media stories and their details. If someone is expressing too much of a story for your own comfort, walk away or communicate your distress.
- Consider having an electronic-free day, and let your senses take in the simpler things in life.
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