As kid, I remember my mom would sometimes turn on the TV news while she cooked dinner. I’d be waiting — hungry — for something nourishing, but the worst kind of “junk” information would ooze out of the set… subconsciously upsetting and worrying me.
The barrage of “bad news” coverage was interrupted only by annoying antacid & payday loan commercials, dull weather reports, or by the one token “uplifting piece” about kittens or old people they’d tack on at the end. The local newspaper was fairly negative, too – except for the except for the Sports and Lifestyle sections.
Can you imagine if a TV newscaster jumped on Twitter and shared lots of ‘bad news’ links and commentary? They’d get blocked, shunned and left with very few followers.
Mass media loved bad news because it was cheap and easy to produce: daily negative incidents are bountiful and the fear they arouse has an addictive quality – making it easy to maintain an audience.
Thankfully – social media seems to have effectively flipped the “bad news sells” paradigm. I spend hours each day reading through news via RSS + Digg and Twitter – but I rarely encounter a steady stream of stuff that makes me depressed. Sure – upsetting events and tragedies are definitely shared via social media – but they tend to be balanced out by positive and useful information:
Social news is often has an upbeat, promising, or satirical tone.
I follow diverse content sources I find inspiring. I don’t click on links that sound un-appealing. I monitor only the local and national news events that affect me. And I block users and sites that upset me.
And I generally find myself amused and enriched by what my social media channels bring me, rather than “feeling down” about how horrible and cruel the world is (after TV or the newspaper).
What about you? How has social media and online news changed your outlook on the world?
