News Diet and Selective Attention
I was sharing with a friend recently about my self-imposed News diet. I reasoned that being so focused on negativity all day was not mentally healthy. She agreed and called it “fear porn”. I had not heard that phrase before but after thinking about it, I thought it applied.
There seemed to be an almost addicting pull to keep watching more and more of what was essentially the same stories over and over again. There may be slight variations, but essentially the same characters or issues and their stories dominated the news cycles and the news seemed to be unceasingly bad, very bad and horrible. It can become soul crushing and promote depression or anxiety if you immersed yourself in it too much. My solution was to just put myself on a News diet.
The thing however about restricting yourself from watching too much news is that you can experience a degree of FOMO. I feared that I would miss out on something that I needed to know about; something that could impact my health or the health of my family. I remember being embarrassed to be told by some friend as we were out walking together, that they were praying for the families who were impacted by the collapse of the building in Miami. With surprise I said, “What building in Miami”. They then looked at me as if I had grown two heads. “How could you not know about it, it’s been all over the news” they said. At which point I told them about my News diet and that I had not watched the news for 5 days at this point. I did get caught up when I left them and went home. I remember feeling bad that something so significant had been missed. Never the less after I caught up on what was going on I once again promptly turned off the News because it was just repetition of the same stories with different characters.
What I have noticed is that whatever you immerse yourself in sticks to you. In other words if all you see if death, dying, doom and destruction, your thoughts become anxious and you become fatalistic, histrionic, or apathetic. I am determined to remain, optimistic and hopeful even though everything in the news would tell me that that is naïve.
One of my favorite verses of scripture is:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 4–9
It reminds me that the peace I crave comes with setting my mind in a certain direction. I need to seek to put attention on things that exhibit positive qualities. I need to look for the good and praiseworthy and not necessarily the newsworthy. The news will always look to shine a light on what sells papers, what brings views, and unfortunately fear sells, hence my friend’s term “fear porn”
Stepping back from a constant diet of news about deaths, disasters, and disease may be hard for some people. If that is you, ask yourself what good is it adding to the world for you to be so informed? Are you praying more? donating more? Are you now able to write policy to protect yourself and others; are you able to develop or create goods, services or events that can ameliorate the negative impact of the news you are now informed about? How are you sleeping at night, how are you functioning during the day? If having access to the news allows you to be more peaceful and to help yourself and others, then you have grounds to continue to indulge. If it is the opposite, then you may be ready to put yourself on a News diet.
Lastly I remembered the video I saw many years ago about selective attention. I will post it here. I wonder, what are we not seeing and not paying attention to because we are paying so much attention to the negative that the media tells us to observe. It was just a random thought, but I wanted to share it here. Pay attention to the positive, I believe that if you do, you will see more and be able to do more.
