If you have ever been on Facebook or most newspapers, you probably notice that they push depressing media. People are more likely to stay engaged if they feel like something is threatening them, which means more scrolling and ad revenue. It’s a vicious cycle for the user.
It’s easy to walk away from this and feel like the world is horrible. Crime is at an all-time high; everyone is out to get you, the government is corrupt, and the world is a horrible place. So, there is no point in trying.
You stop engaging politically, or even worse, start voting for parties that make the world a worse place. Either way, that’s the goal.
While it is important that the news media writes articles about events, that is their job; it is our job as citizens to ensure that the constant flood of negative news stories does not capture the whole picture.
The enemy is our brains. Even after being trained, we are naturally bad at statistics. It’s easy to watch the news, feel like cities are overrun by crime, read message boards, and feel like everyone is a doomer.
However, the problem is that this is not a random sample. It is a biased sample since people are more likely to comment if they feel something is wrong than if they agree. This is where we need to pull ourselves out of our base mindset and push ourselves towards seeing the bigger picture. While we live in a world with more access to news from everywhere, we are also in an era where we have more access to big-picture statistics than any time before, and the amount of big-picture data that becomes available grows daily.
What I wish people would do more is look at the big picture when you look at an unpleasant news story. It doesn’t minimize the suffering in places like Gaza, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, which are truly horrific. Still, the trick is recognizing what is happening in those places while understanding the big picture.
That’s hard. Really hard. No one can do it all the time.
The ironic part of it is that while people fall for doomer narratives of how the world is worse than it was, we also won’t do everything possible to ensure Ukraine wins and negotiate a workable system to bring lasting peace to Israel and Palestine. Plus all the other conflicts in the world today.
We need to understand our world in a way that doesn’t lead to despair but instead leads to action. This requires a clear mindset, which is more difficult than shutting down but also far more rewarding for the practitioner and society as a whole.
- Understand where we have been. Study history as much as you can.
- Understand the current situation, good and bad. Do not bury your head in the sand.
- Dream about how to make things better. Do not despair.
If you do these three things, I have found it leads to a much more meaningful life.
The only thing you need to block out are people who deny the humanity of others and doomers.