You want to live a less stressed life? Have more time? and be happier? Read on to see how the news is affecting you.

 

An indian I met recently, lets call her Eva for sake of discretion,  inspired me for this weeks post. She asked me her favorite question to ask people outside of India:

What comes to your mind when you think of india?

I answered dancing, you know, the kind you see in Bollywood.

She then asked me to continue and say what else came to mind.

I added spicy food, colors, cricket, buddhism, cows, Gandhi, Mumbai, slumdog millionaire.

I dropped all the stereotypes I could come up within a limited time.

After I couldn’t come up with anything new off the top of my head in a few seconds, Eva told me usual responses she got.

Indians don’t eat beef, India’s overpopulated, there are too many slums, they have poor living conditions, there are always massacres.

Basically, most of what the news outlets feed us and what you might learn in school.

Now for the interesting part. She then proceeded telling me what she never got as answers.

That India is one of the fastest growing emerging countries.

That India controls a huge part of the American economy since many companies are in India or work with Indian based services like decentralised virtual assistants.

That the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) managed to launch a rocket to Mars and back on the first attempt for a fraction of the cost it took NASA to try the same thing after many failed attempts.

After having had this conversation it reminded me why I don’t read or watch the new. This simple question she asked reveals a lot about stereotypes and shows that the media influence our perspectives and view of the world based on what it decides to feed you. 

What the media is feeding you

We usually come up with the negatives far easier than the positives. That is a natural tendency in everyone. It’s how we survived for thousands of years. We want to avoid what is uncomfortable or painful so we pay attention to the negatives and stay clear of them.

The media industry knows this. And they use it abundantly. Fear sells. Scandals sell. Death and big accidents sell. That’s why they’re regularly on the front page of the news.

It you turn on the news on your TV or look at the front page of a newspaper you can be assured it will almost always be along the same line. Accidents, violence, terrorism, catastrophic events, death, political scandals, all this between the weather forecast and occasionally an interview where the interviewer tries to move on to the next subject quickly because time is money.

In fact, here is the screenshot of the top stories on three consecutive days. I went through and emphasised some key words. Have a look at them.

Now that you’ve read through those words, can you imagine what decades of exposure to this type of content, every single day will do to you?

How positive do you think your thoughts will be throughout the day when you wake up and the first thing you do is look at the news? When you see there’s been another shooting that there’s more death,  more political assaults and debates and scandals?

How good are your stress levels going to be? How happy are you likely to feel?

Trust me, if you don’t know what you’re day will be like, I can tell you it’s not going to be very positive or encouraging. It’ll likely be very stressful and uncomfortable.

On the first page shown above, what I emphasised on the bottom right made me laugh. “Get your morning update with FIRST READ delivered to your inbox every weekday.”

Seriously ! do you think you want to have this kind of “update” to downgrade the quality of your day? How about that for downgrading the quality of your life?

That is some serious mental conditioning you’re being exposed to. How about conditioning yourself to some more positive thoughts. What if you chose not to be exposed to such thoughts. As it has been said many times and many different ways, our thoughts have a tremendous impact on us every day.

Put shortly the news is a constant feed of violence, plane crashes, terrorist attacks, gun shootings, trivial political scandals designed to grab your attention and shock you.

So Is the world this negative?

When all you see all the time is violence, earthquakes, scandals, celebrity lives, negative words… you end up thinking that is the way things are and that the world is mostly what is showed to you.

It simply isn’t.

There are many beautiful thing out there. Beautiful landscapes, people, places, experiences. How often do you see it in the news?

If you see plane crashes every month or two on the news you begin to think that planes are suddenly starting to fall out of the sky more and more often. Therefore making you fearful. But the fact is, there have always been plane crashes, and planes are virtually the safest transportation available as of today.

In the US alone in 2015 there were more than 30,000 fatal crashes on roadways due to motor vehicles. Thats over 80 deaths per day. You don’t hear about all those deaths in the news. They’re too many and they aren’t considered shocking enough. Occasionally you might see an accident on the news but only if it involves someone famous or is sufficiently dreadful.

Now I am probably making you feel uncomfortable. It’s okay. It’s a normal response.

Remember, the world has many beautiful things in it. It’s not because you are shown negative things that it’s the way things are. Now some of you are thinking you want to stop watching the news. Others are probably thinking it isn’t feasible.

Ok … but you can’t just cut off the news !

But if I don’t get the news, I’m going to be cut off from the world ! I’m going to be ignorant !

No you’re not. You won’t even notice a difference. Actually you will, you’re quality of life will be greatly improved.

If you’re sceptical, try going a week without the news and see how it goes. Are you more stupid? Has you’re life changed a lot? Are you unaware of the latest important news?

If there is something worth knowing about on the news, you’ll hear about it. People talk a lot. You’d be surprised all you can learn just by listening.  Plus it becomes another subject for small talk. Just ask someone what’s new in the world.

Cultivate selective ignorance. Chose what you don’t need to know. Be honest. Do you really need to know what Leonardo DiCaprio is doing in his spare time? Or that there is still bad stuff in the world?

There are definitely things that are worth not knowing.

After a while being “off the hook” you realise that things are about the same as they were going before you stopped. Plus you have more time for other activities.

What now?

My challenge to you is to go a couple days without checking the news and see how it works out. If you don’t like it after a week or feel you absolutely need your news feed you can always go back to what you were doing before. Just try it out.

However, if you  notice any change in you attitude or thoughts when you aren’t being exposed constantly to the news, or if you realise that the news wasn’t bringing you any real value, I’d suggest you quit.

Note that the longer you have been regularly exposed to the news the longer it takes to have more positive thoughts and feel better.

So go ahead, take on the challenge. Go a week without checking the news and see how it goes.