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We know our brains are wired to pay attention to bad news. But lately do you feel that your social media is just filled with negativity? Do you find yourself getting angry and upset as you scroll through your news feeds? Are you turning off the news?
Well you're not alone. According to the Digital News Report Australia 2023 high interest in news has fallen to 53%. Women’s interest has fallen further to a record low of 43% and concern about misinformation has risen to 69%. People want more positive stories in the news. When asked about their level of interest in a range of news types, more than half (56%) say they are very or extremely interested in positive news stories.
There is now much better recognition of the harm being done by negative news.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, is being sued by 41 US states that have accused the company of deliberately designing algorithms to cause addictive behaviour in children and of concealing its own research that proves that these products are harming young users, in particular their mental health.
We understand that journalism has a built-in bias toward the negative, because bad things are sudden (a shooting rampage, a major accident, a war, an epidemic), while good things are gradual and not always easy to photograph. In a digital world clicks on posts are important and we all have a tendency to click negative stories.
According to a 2022 British Library exhibition in London that I attended called "Breaking the News-Reported or Distorted" these points make an event news: Crime and sensationalism; Scandal; Conflict; Disaster; Power; Suppression; Satire; Chaos; Celebrity; Celebration. Not much to celebrate here.
Recognising the harm done by negative news, it’s time for a change.
I co-founded the open innovation platform IdeaSpies in 2016 disturbed by the growing impact of negative news on mental health, risk-taking and innovation.
IdeaSpies is a platform for sharing clever ideas that are in use and new discoveries. Since then we’ve shared more than 7,000 positive ideas, explained simply, in topics ranging from AgTech to Wellbeing, generating more than 225 million views.
In researching the impact of good and bad news, I have learned that positive stories, no matter how big or small, can affect our wellbeing positively. Positive news has a real impact on our health by triggering hormones linked to wellbeing like Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin and Endorphins. They help to regulate stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.
Decreasing our exposure to negative news and increasing our exposure to positive news supports our feelings of wellbeing.
While dystopian visions of the world are possible futures, we can and must also imagine a future for humanity that’s positive, to encourage and support the innovations that drive a better world. Every innovation is based on an idea.
Sir Anthony Seldon writing in The Ideas-Informed Society, published in 2023, said “Without ideas, no progress can be made. With the wrong ideas, no progress can be made. But with the right ideas, at the right time, anything is possible”. IdeaSpies is featured in Chapter 16 "Getting The (Positive) Word Out.
It’s time to start a movement that shows the positive stories around us, and we have a name for it. Instead of doomscrolling, its time for cheerscrolling. Thanks to Marcus Gordon, the IdeaSpies Inclusion Editor, the Urban Dictionary has added cheerscrolling which is defined as ”the flip-side to doomscrolling”.
It’s an important time to remember that we have this capacity in our control and ask whether we are giving our attention to the right things. The 19th century philosopher and founding father of modern psychology, William James had a powerful idea about attention, that is very relevant today. He wrote that “Attention… is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought” ie what we attend to shapes the experiences we have.
We need to be very careful with the content we are feeding our minds through social media. This means being much more discriminating in choosing our news sources, particularly given developments in AI which will lead to more misinformation.
There are many wonderful ideas at various stages of commercialisation happening here in Australia and around the world. They are solutions to many world problems. Idea Spies are passionate about sharing these ideas to fuel further innovation and entrepreneurship eg re plastic waste. https://ideaspies.com/search?q=plastic+waste
As William Gibson is reported to have said “The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed”. Let’s look for these ideas and stories and share them by #cheerscrolling. When we see and share positive news it helps to inspire others that we can have a positive future. It’s also good for our mental health.
By Lynn Wood
Founder and Chief Idea Spy
Marcus Gordon