A few years ago, my son did a swim-with-sharks scuba dive. As you can imagine, it was not a trip my mother-self enthusiastically endorsed. He told me it was perfectly safe because the vast majority of the sharks ignore the insignificant little humans in the water and zero in on the dead, bloody stuff called chum that the dive guides spread in the water. The resemblance to media—social and otherwise—with its penchant for provoking anger, fear, sadness, and disgust is hard to miss.
Negativity bias is our inclination to be more attracted to and stimulated by the bad rather than the good. And negativity bias in consumers is a motivating force for the shark-like choices news and social media make. While most of us say we prefer good news, studies show that catastrophe and clicks go hand in hand. People get more of a jolt out of the negative than they do the positive. Maybe being shocked by the latest unbelievable shenanigans of well-known people gives us an adrenaline rush and we feel more alive for a moment. Perhaps the horror of a natural disaster gives us a surge of gratitude. Whatever the reasons, our autonomic nervous systems react more strongly to bad news than they do good. Which can be addictive. Sugar is also addictive, and we are well aware that a steady diet of it is extremely unhealthy. So is a steady diet of bad news.
Every kind of news under the sun is available to us instantly. The choice is ours. We can doomscroll (a thank-you to journalist Karen Ho for that scary term). We can abstain from all news, or we can choose to take in whatever we want wherever we find it. As journalist Dylan Matthews puts it, the plethora of choices “leaves consumers at the mercy of their own impulses.”
Impulse is one thing, awareness is another. Being aware of how much, and what kind of news, keeps you upbeat and positive gives you the information to make good choices. Appropriate choices allow hope to grow in your heart, mind, and soul. Only you know your personal negativity biases and how to balance them with what is healthy and uplifting for you.
Excerpted from How to Stay Upbeat in a Beat Down World by Sue Patton Thoele. Available on Amazon.