Informed or Inflamed?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/yelling-formal-man-watching-news-on-laptop-3760778/

Stress has always played a significant part in health problems for the majority of people. I’ve been in practice for nearly 32 years and in that time I think stress for most people has grown significantly worse.

There are numerous factors, but I believe the biggest sources of today’s increased stress levels are the heavily politicized 24/7 news cycle and social media.

Let’s start with what we call “news.” These days, it’s likely to be at least as much editorial and opinion as it is actual news. I remember the days when television news was only available a few times per day, and it was mostly a “just the facts” delivery that told you the who, what, why, where, and when of newsworthy events – there was no overwhelming attempt to sway the way you thought about those events.

These days, not only are news stories highly sensationalized and politicized, but they’re repeated over and over again, each time reinforcing the emotional responses they’re intended to elicit. And oftentimes, they aren’t even true! How many times have we seen news agencies issue retractions of factually incorrect stories that were in heavy rotation in the news cycle. Strangely, those retractions seem to be broadcast a lot fewer times and in a more low-key manner than the stories they are retracting.

It’s almost as if the news outlets want us scared and angry at all times. Actually, I don’t think it’s almost. I think much of the news today is very much intended to elicit fear, anger, and other highly negative emotional states in viewers, and this is true regardless of the particular political viewpoint of the news outlet in question.

Why would they do this? Well, the same reason most major corporations do anything – to make more money! Engaging their viewers’ emotions tends to make the viewers watch more to stay informed about the horrible things that are happening. More viewers doing more watching justifies higher advertising rates, which leads to greater profits.

I suspect that this profit motive very much has diminished the attention to responsible reporting. Stories don’t get adequately fact-checked. Sources don’t get properly vetted. And if the news agency gets called out for a story that’s overtly wrong or untrue, oh well! They do a brief apology and move on. Even if they go way over the line and wind up getting sued over defamatory content, they probably still come out ahead on advertising profits in the long run. Journalistic integrity is discouraged in favor of emotionally engaging viewers.

Social media is just an extension of the same fear and anger machine. Whether social media users spread factually questionable information they got from one of the big news sources, or simply make stuff up with no basis in fact whatsoever, the more crazy, scary, and/or enraging it is, the more it tends to get spread around. A lot of this stuff is easily discredited, but the vast majority of people don’t question anything that feeds their pre-existing beliefs and it’s far too easy to re-post and continue to spread it.

It’s just continual fuel for our stress fires and it’s damaging us both emotionally and physically.

So what can we do about it?

First, I strongly encourage people to limit their consumption of news in general, and try to stick to actual news (instead of news commentary). If anything really important happens, you’ll hear about it, so you don’t need to spend all your free time watching the news.

Now, I realize that news commentary shows such as Sean Hannity’s on Fox or Rachel Maddow’s on MSNBC are popular and often entertaining, but it seems to me that they are very much designed to inflame your emotions much more than inform you of the day’s events. If you must watch them, try to keep in mind that their intent is to upset you – half of what they say is at the very least exaggerated and spun for the preconceived political beliefs of their respective audience. Gotta keep you tuning in so they get top dollar for their advertising spots!

What about social media?

My recommendation is to eliminate it as much as possible from your life, and if you can’t eliminate it altogether, at least be as selective as possible about who you follow and what content you engage with. Depending on the site, it may be possible to largely curate what shows up on your news feed. If you’re going to continue to use social media, I highly recommend doing whatever you can to minimize political, and any angry, hateful, or controversial content.

Consider taking a social media vacation from time to time in which you simply don’t look at those apps or webpages for a week or (preferably) more. Tell people in advance that’s what you’re doing so they know to contact you another way if something really important comes up (I’m surprised at how many people exclusively use Facebook to share important news with family and friends!).

Finally, remember that people who disagree with you are simply people who disagree with you. While there are certainly bad people on social media, most of the them are just human beings who are subject to flaws and being influenced to fear and anger by a scary or enraging bit of information that may or may not even be true.

In their emotionally-charged state, they’re probably not going to be receptive to a contrasting point of view or fact-checking. As long as they’re not in immediate danger from acting on faulty information, there’s no need to jump in and try to correct their misguided thinking. If you feel you must respond, perhaps ask them (in an interested way rather than accusatory) for more information or their source – they may discover for themselves that what they posted was not what it seemed at first.

All things considered, while being informed can be a good thing, a lot of us could probably benefit from being a little less informed than we are now!

Until next time,

George Best, D.C.