Do you consume the news or does it consume you?
(Hint: it probably does)
It’s a habit of mine: at 6pm every evening, I turn on the TV and watch the news. I’ll have been consuming it, subconsciously for the most part, all day via social media, probably discussing it for a good portion of the day too, or at least thinking about it.
The world, near and far, is a lot right now. Of course, it’s important to stay up to date with what’s happening, even if it is a harsh reality that doesn’t make you feel particularly good. I’m not arguing against that – sticking your head in the sand is not a good coping mechanism.
The world has been a lot for a long time. But, usually, the bad news is punctuated by something uplifting, something funny, something sweet. It seems as though that isn’t happening much lately; as if the sad things are just too sad to be sweetened by a story about a cat saving its owner’s life or a kid raising money by selling cupcakes. You know, the usual kind of good news.
And what could sweeten the things we see on the news at the moment? What could sweeten the horrors of Covid? What could sweeten the unspeakably awful news that has been all over our headlines in the UK for the past week; that a young woman named Sarah Everard was snatched from the streets and killed as she simply walked from one place to another? And the heinous news that a serving Metropolitan police officer has been charged with her murder?
These blows are too heavy, too sharp, to soften.
The news isn’t new
I worry that, although it’s important to be engaged with the current events of the world in which we live, when all we consume is hopelessness, it does inevitably make us feel hopeless. I worry that this hopelessness seeps deep into our hearts and minds and calcifies there, impacting our long-term mental health more than we realise.
There are things I know without needing to watch the news every night, without needing to be reminded several times a day. Particularly, at the moment:
- Covid remains dangerous. It continues to kill a lot of people. We need to remain vigilant in protecting ourselves and our neighbours.
- Misogyny is dangerous. Sarah Everard very sadly isn’t the first and won’t be the last woman to be subjected to violence by a man as she goes about her life, not hurting anyone or doing anything wrong. This is deeply wrong and deeply distressing and deeply in need of change.
This news isn’t new to me. I know these things. I know them like the back of my hand, and they don’t change from day to day. So why am I so hooked on the news, when all it does is tell me vaguely the same thing as it told me yesterday?
Guarding your heart
I don’t think the answer is to stop consuming the news altogether. Given the current climate, I’m not sure that’s responsible or, indeed, even possible. But there are several things I think we can do in order to guard our hearts against the negative impacts of consuming too much negative news.
Firstly, being intentional about the sources from which we obtain news. This is something I’m trying really hard to practice at the moment. There are certain newspapers and news channels–none of which I’ll name, but I’m sure you can picture for yourselves–that rely on sensationalism, fear-mongering, and hyperbole in order to stand out and, ultimately, sell. Often these publications will take the most serious, somber of events, and turn them into soap operas with little shame or regard for the consequences. Adding drama to what is already stressful and traumatic is not responsible on their part, and consuming it isn’t helpful on ours.
We have the power to avoid it. It’s mostly as simple as not watching their channels, not buying their papers, not clicking on their websites, not following them on social media.
Of course, it’s not entirely that simple; because you may know people who consume this sort of sensationalism and share unhelpful articles on platforms such as Facebook, where it’s hard to ignore the things that appear in your news feed, or use the sensationalism they’ve consumed to form the basis of a perspective from which they want to converse with you. You have every right to politely decline to talk about certain subjects or subtly change the topic of conversation if you know it will only add to the anxiety and stress you already feel. If you see a sensationalist article shared on a social media platform, you don’t have to click on it or read the comments. You can keep scrolling.
Make the effort to keep what you consume as impartial as possible, as rational as possible, as realistic as possible.
And it’s not just quality that matters; it’s quantity also. If you watch the 6 pm news, give the 10 pm a miss. If you’ve been receiving updates all day from social media, make the choice to not read a newspaper or watch the news on TV as well. Disable push notifications from news apps on your phone and laptop so that you’re not bombarded with updates. Discern and monitor how much intake is conducive to your health, just as you discern what sources are and aren’t conducive to your health.
The good news
The good news is that there’s plenty more good in the world than bad. The world is made up mostly of people who are just trying to get on with their lives, treading lightly and being kind. The reason we don’t hear about all the good stuff in mainstream news is because there’s too much of it to report.
Good news is really accessible, if not mainstream. There are outlets designed to exclusively deliver good news – the most famous one I can think of being The Happy News created by Emily Coxhead, but there are plenty of others as well.
There’s good news all around us; things that we’re aware of and things we aren’t. It’s really important to remember that when everything seems hopeless. The sun coming out, a friendly cashier, melted mozzarella, a level up on Duolingo, fresh bedsheets, perfectly hot bath water, a relaxing walk: all of this is good news. The bigger everyday things: a couple down the street who’ve just adopted after ten years of infertility, a church and a mosque working together to provide meals to people who need them, the one year anniversary of someone being sober, the many lives that are saved in our local hospitals.
All of that is good news, and things like that happen every single day all around us. None of it makes the news.
Enforcing boundaries
Boundaries are, of course, important in every aspect of life. We may not think that something as simple as reading or watching the news requires us to enforce and maintain strong boundaries, but like anything else that has power over our mental health, it does. When the news begins to consume us, rather than we consuming it, it’s time for those boundaries to be built.
Yes, we live in a scary and uncertain world; but, my goodness, we also live in a cynical one. It’s not naive or unrealistic to hold on with all our might to the life and the beauty and the hope in the world. It’s not impossible to do that whilst also being aware and concerned about the things we need to be aware and concerned about. If anything, it’s never been more important, in the face of those things, to not lose sight of the life and the beauty and the hope. There’s plenty of it. You just won’t see much of it by watching the news.