If I could tell the world one thing...
It'd be that people's news consumption and their mental health are connected.
Hello dear beautiful voyagers,
In the past, I’ve been afraid to share this opinion for fear of being criticized (“Get your head back in the sand, ostrich”) or name-called (“Ostrich”).
Where I live, the assumption is that you must be informed about every thing that happens in the world or trends in the news as it happens. When people get together, they talk headlines and bemoan the state of the world.
In the past few years, I’ve found myself getting quieter and quieter during these conversations, not wanting to join the whirlpool of doubt, anxiety, and fear.
I’ve watched the people around me swan dive into the churning news cycle, getting frothy and worked up. And I’ve attempted to speak up about what I’ve seen, whispering, “Do you think reading less news might help?” The response is usually dismissive, that avoiding news is as hard as avoiding sugar. In an ideal world, yes, we’d consume less, but that’s not the world we live in.
Yesterday a colleague sent me the following article from The Information with great intentions, assuming that they were bolstering my point of view that mental healthcare is important for everyone:
Instead, I found myself getting frustrated. How could an article have the terms “bad news” in the title, outlining forms of treatment from psilocybin to professional cuddling without mentioning that it is possible to shut down the stream of toxic news consumption? That by instituting some boundaries, you don’t need to be sucking on the mental health equivalent of a cigarette as soon as you wake up and go to sleep?
I’m getting older. I remember a time before unfettered news access, when journalists weren’t compensated by the clicks they accrued. A time before perverse incentives. I remember waking up as a kid in Ohio, coming down the stairs and seeing my parents with their coffee mugs in their reading chairs, pages of discarded sections of the newspaper strewn on the ground around them. It’s not that they never got upset by what they read, but ultimately they set it aside and started their days. Their approach is in line with this NIH study on selective news engagement. Graham Davey, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Sussex, recommends “watching news only at specific times of day, making sure you have activities available after that will lift your mood, like listening to upbeat music, exercising, or a good soak in a relaxing, warm bath.”
What do you think? Do you believe your intake of news is affecting your mental health, or the mental health of the people around you? Do you feel comfortable questioning other people’s news consumption? Share your thoughts on this Twitter thread.
Love,
I am officially a Voyager after this! Completely agree - soooo much negativity out there right now. Stock market, wars, inflation, economy, violence, etc... glad I’m not alone!
When I can’t avoid being exposed to the news, I make a point to counteract the often isolated instances of violence for example by saying, “And billions of people did NOT do that and will never in their lifetimes.” I find it helps me to feel calmer and better.