Protection From News Infections

The following is a quote from an article I wrote called, The Danger Of Keeping Up With The News. Now I'm quoting myself! What is the world coming to? But I wanted to isolate this point because Jacob Weisberg says very simply and clearly why most of what you get from any newsmedia will be unrealistically biased toward negativity. Keep this in mind when you watch or read or listen to news. It will protect you somewhat from a negativity infection. Here's the quote:

"In a brilliant article called The Rout of Doubt, Jacob Weisberg criticized the pessimists in the media and pointed out that there is a 'built-in media bias toward pessimism.' Defeatism gets better ratings than confidence. The cards are stacked in favor of pessimism. As Weisberg points out, if a pessimistic commentator later turns to be right, he looks great. If things turn out better than the commentator predicted, he only looks cautious. Looking cautious is not a bad thing for a commentator. On the other hand, if he speaks positively and confidently and turns out to be wrong, he looks naive, foolish, and unsophisticated. And it is much better for a commentator to look careful than to look naive. The result is an automatic pessimistic stance on everything. It's the safest thing to do."

Learn what you can do to protect yourself from the four negative biases: The Three Ways To Protect Yourself From Pessimism Infections.

The Three Ways To Protect Yourself From a Pessimism Infection

The three main ways to protect yourself from the influence of the four negative biases are:

1. Remind yourself of the four biases.

2. Question motives of the source.

3. Control your input.

The Insidious Television

NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR IT. I know I don't. But watching television is a waste of time if what you want to be is happy. As I've said many places, it is actually worse than a waste of time: It uses up time you could be using to do healthy, enriching, and otherwise satisfying things. But it is easy and unnaturally compelling.

A study that found a large percentage of people watch more television than they want. Strange, isn't it, when the thing is so easy to turn off? In a recent post on the Positive Psychology News Daily called Does TV Make Us Happy?, Rosie Milner wrote:

"On average, Americans spend about five hours per day watching TV, while Europeans are glued to the box for over three and a half hours daily."

That's a lot of time. Especially when it doesn't make you happier or healthier or more successful or even more relaxed! But like Rosie says, television has one thing in its favor: it gives immediate gratification. Beyond that, television producers make it as difficult as possible for you to turn off your TV or even change the channel. They use every trick they can.

And in their efforts to capture and hold your attention, they accidentally change your worldview into a more pessimistic one. One of the methods they use to capture your attention is to horrify or shock you. Your brain hasn't evolved to deal with so much sensationalistic input. Too much of it skews your point of view. This is one of the leading causes of the global pessimism we're trying to crush here on CP.

That's the big view. The more immediate issue is you and your own television.

Nobody is going to save you from your television. It's your life. If you are going to have a great one, you will have to turn that thing off more than you want to.

If you're looking to have a little goofing-off time, here's an idea of what to do besides television: Wasting Time The Old Fashioned Way.

And here's an article with a few good ways to reduce the amount of television you watch: How To Have More Life In Your Time.

How To Stay Informed Without Being Upset Unnecessarily

AS YOU KNOW, in order to compete with other stations for your attention, television news must shock and upset people to compel their attention even against their will. Read more about that here. So I suggest you find some other way to stay informed of world events.

Reading news is better than watching it (you have more control over what news you get, and you are not so gripped by visual images). Reading a magazine is better than a newspaper (they have more time to develop stories, they have more distance in time, so tend to avoid covering things that are only temporarily newsworthy, and they tend to be more accurate because they have more time for fact-checking).

The best news magazine I've ever read is called The Week. Check out their web site here. No, they aren't paying me to say this (although I wish they were). It is just a darn good magazine because they cover, as they put it, "all you need to know about everything that matters." That's their byline and they really do a great job living up to it. They describe themselves well:

THE WEEK is a spirited newsweekly that distills the best of news, opinion, and ideas from the U.S. and international media.

Every week, THE WEEK's editors scour hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and Web sites (U.S. and foreign), searching for the most intriguing stories and the most thoughtful commentary—left, right, and everything in between. Covering the entire political waterfront. The best of what they find gets reported—concise, intelligent, crisp.

THE WEEK's format is straightforward yet information-packed. Its focus is broad: U.S. and international news, the best opinion columns from here and abroad, health and science, books, film, the arts, leisure activities. Besides bringing readers up to date on the world scene, THE WEEK reports on what the smartest people are saying about it.

It's a fast read, and that's a good thing. THE WEEK's readers actually read the magazine cover-to-cover each week. It's designed that way.

Common-sense style and no jump edit give THE WEEK its fast-paced flow. Easy-access blurbs and insets accompany the in-depth pieces. Nothing gets more ink than it warrants; no story is too small.

Fifty percent of the edit focuses on reporting on the news-big issues and big opinions. Arts, leisure, and business get the other 50 percent. Things overlap, of course.

If you're looking for a way to stay informed without being upset unnecessarily, I don't think you can do better than The Week. If you think you've found a better source, however, I would love to hear about it.