I used to believe that you have to come from a good background to make me cynical. I saw myself as an involved citizen. One who, based on his commitment, believes that we can make the world a bit better. Until I found myself in a cynical state, due to the endless influx of miserable news.
Anyone who has been following the news closely in recent years has every reason to become cynical. We were just dealing with the hangover of a pandemic and immediately found ourselves in a new world order where the arms industry makes billions from the loss of human lives in Ukraine and Gaza, while multilateral cooperation is under pressure. Not to mention existential risks that threaten the existence of humanity.
The constant exposure to these and other miserable developments is disastrous for our health. News leads to stress and anxiety because it traps our bodies in a permanent state of fight-or-flight. The link between news consumption and depression has now also been established. Catastrophic developments that exceed their own framework of action leave citizens feeling hopeless and powerless. Not to mention 'doomscrolling' on social media. That's the tendency to endlessly consume bad news, even if it is saddening, discouraging and depressing.
With these facts in mind, it is impossible to blame the so-called news avoiders. These are citizens who have chosen in recent years to no longer follow news out of self-care. Due to various developments in my life, I behaved like a news avoider over the past year. I found my comfort in Rolf Dobelli's analyses. This Swiss writer compares news to sugar: addictive – and devastating. What sugar is for our body, is news for our mind, he says. For Dobelli there is only one solution to this addictive drug: eliminate it from life. He has lived without news for ten years, and says he is “happier than ever” because of it. Instead of news, he advises us to read books, longer articles and academic publications. This gives us more context about what's happening in the world, instead of losing ourselves in junk food for the mind.
But no matter how tempting the proposition of Dobelli and other news avoiders is, I simply cannot eliminate news completely. Because I think it is unwise. After all, avoiding news goes against our nature. The tendency to identify dangers during crises is ingrained in our humanity. It's not something that started with traditional and social media. As Christian van Nieuwerburgh, professor of positive psychology, writes in an academic blog: “Gathering information and being prepared to face threats have been crucial to our survival for millennia.”
The only question is how we as concerned citizens can deal with the endless influx of miserable news in the world without drowning in fatalism.
Fortunately, there are plenty of strategies we can use on a personal level to ensure that we do not lose ourselves through news consumption. This way you can turn off the sound on heavy videos and consume news at a fixed time. You can also consciously look for positive news and news that challenges your worldview. But these and other methods of news literacy are not enough. We cannot leave the fight against hopelessness to the individual.
In my opinion, we need collective interventions to protect citizens from the negative consequences of miserable news. This requires an investment in meeting spaces, where citizens are enabled to be aware of their collective vulnerability and mutual connection. Fortunately, we have no shortage of cultural institutions, libraries, places of worship, reading clubs, neighborhood associations, protests, theaters and concert halls. The only question is whether we use these meeting spaces sufficiently. As places where citizens can learn that they are not the only ones who worry. Places where they can learn from citizens and experts that they do not have to bear the misery of the world alone. And that with their experience and skills they can leave the world a better place.
Kiza Magendane is a political scientist.
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