How to Forge a New Relationship with the News
Emily Hogle, October 20, 2021
“Hi, my name is Emily, and I’m a news addict.”
Like a desperate person looking for a fix, I scroll the news feed. Never truly reading. Not really even focusing on the blurred streak of color and words that move swiftly up and away with the pull of my finger. Head down, buried and focused, I seek answers. I seek to fill a void. Something to calm what ails me.
I am hungry for hope and must feed my addiction to “hope-ium”. Surely there is good news? Something we can hang our hat on. A sign that things are turning for the better. Where are the celebrations of good things? The stories with kind words? Why can’t I find what I need in my news feed to feel okay with this world?
The shadow of angst starts to loom, dark and ominous above me, as I reach the end of the feed and realize what I need is not there. Now, I feel worse than just an addict. I’ve also been duped. Because what I need cannot be found there. My eyes are over-stimulated. My brain is filled with partially processed sludge. And visual imprints of the stimulating headlines stick in me like sharp objects. I am exhausted. Where did the hour go?
Can you relate? Are you looking in the mirror as you read? Or perhaps you’ve told yourself that you “need to stay informed. Being a good citizen is being an informed citizen, right?” (1).
Whether for hope or valiant intent, our urge is compulsive and we don’t even really know why. It feels obsessive, which doesn’t seem right. But our intent is positive, so shouldn't that offset this feeling of doom? Or is this suffering just a necessary by-product of good intent? It becomes too entangled to process, but still we carry on swiping up to read the blur.
There is now a commonly used term for this insatiable need to consume the news. For this twitchy and compulsive feeling. Doom Scrolling.
According to Mark Barabak of the L.A. Times, doom scrolling is "an excessive amount of screen time devoted to the absorption of dystopian news." This behavior is common enough that we invented a word that seems right out of a 1980’s dystopian sci-fi film, to describe it. In fact this behavior is so prolific that Merriam-Webster has it on their “Words We’re Watching” list to determine if it should be included in the dictionary (2).
It could be said that this collective, seemingly unstoppable craving to consume the news is coloring how society views both the world at large (inherently good vs. inherently bad) and our day to day interactions with local community, friends, and family. In addition to taking in negativity, we are also being inundated with calls to buy material things to fill the void. “Maybe I can offset this sense of doom with a pair of sustainably made shoes. Maybe I’ll feel more comfortable then...” It is fair to say that there is a societal melancholy that blankets us all like an oppressive fog. Our greatest commonality seems to be our angst.
So, how do we begin to dissipate this fog, allow the warm sun to return and recolor our views? To liberate us from the shackles of our own obsessive behavior? To see the true nature of things?
Before we can begin to redefine our relationship with the news, let’s break down a bit of the true nature of the news itself and our current relationship with it.
The News Is Addicted To Itself
The 24-hour news cycle is a massive global entity dedicated to bringing us, society at large, “All the news that’s fit to print” (3). A noble service in theory, the news is impartial, moral, and ethical according to trade standards. But in reality, the news cannibalizes its own image in pursuit of a steady stream of headlines.
The news is addicted to its own fabricated “need” to produce a story 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is not a true need or benefit for humankind. This is a manufactured effort to create near constant engagement, for marketing profit. The result of the 24-7 news cycle is stories that are not necessarily beneficial to society and in fact can be harmful in their subtle (or not so subtle) promotion of negative emotions like anger, greed, lust, and jealousy.
In many media outlets, as content increases it seems that so does subjectivity, while quality and moral efficacy notably decrease. And if you didn’t like the article, oh well, you may have found something to buy! Regardless, your attention was diverted for purposes not truly your own. Even in the most objective media outlets, negative stories dominate the headlines. The fact remains that negative news sells. This is called the negativity bias. But more on that in a minute.
When we unravel the true nature of the news and contemplate its own addiction to itself, it becomes obvious that the content of the news is not meeting an intrinsic need for humankind. In fact it is not considering our well being at all. And we are relying on an external source that is flawed with its own craving to help craft our perception of the world. For our safety and security. For our hope. We can detach from our scrolling, zoom out and observe that the news is deciding for us what we see, feel, think and consume. We can ask ourselves “are these beneficial to my objectives as a human being in this lifetime?”.
We can take back our autonomy.
Hope and the Paradox of the Negativity Bias
I will be the first to admit that I am addicted to hope. I am smoking the hope-ium. Each day I look high and low for glimmers of goodness to cling to. We would never want to harm ourselves or desire for the worst to happen to society. We are always hoping to see something positive. Something to believe in. Or we may hope to be informed citizens, better members of society.
But, hope is an external craving. We are being driven by our blind craving for things to be better, nicer, kinder. If everything else were better news, we would feel better. We might even be happy. Not only are we looking outside ourselves for our happiness, but we are actually the cause of our own suffering. If we cling to hope for people to be better, things to be better, politics to be better so that we can be happy, we are clinging to a craving that will never be fulfilled.
The paradox is that as we consciously scroll in earnest to find something to be hopeful about, we are actually activating our negativity bias, “psychologists’ term for our collective hunger to hear and remember bad news” (4). We are essentially creating a feeding frenzy for the primitive aspects of our brain. Inherited from our prehistoric ancestors, this “reptile” brain is driven primarily by fear, anger, resource guarding and the perpetuation of life; also known as the Four F’s (fleeing, fighting, feeding, fornicating).
In a study done at McGill University in Canada, participants were asked to choose political news stories from a newspaper that they would like to read, while their eye movements were tracked. They were then asked a series of questions about their news preferences. Most participants selected negative articles to read and avoided looking at the neutral or positive articles. However, when asked what type of news they prefer, participants actually stated that they prefer to read positive news and in general the media is too negative (4).
In other words, our actions (seeking negativity) and our self-perception (seeking positivity or hope) are caught in a paradoxical loop.
It’s important to understand that our primitive brain is the oldest evolved aspect of our brain and can easily override even our most sincere efforts to be happy. Deeply carved neuro-pathways all but ensure we feel alarm faster and more quickly than we can feel at ease with a full heart. In short, feeding the reptile brain within keeps us locked in a primitive way of thinking. We are unable to see this because our actions are preying on our weaknesses in an endless loop of self-inflicted suffering.
But we are not doomed to reside in negativity.
The newer aspect of our brain, the neocortex, enables humans to deeply feel and express tenderness, loving kindness and compassion. Our ancestors have even left traces of this evolving compassion in Paleolithic cave drawings. As noted by Karen Armstrong in the Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, this range of “benevolent emotions allowed the ferocity of ancient hunters to be tempered with a manifest tenderness toward and affinity for the beasts they were obliged to kill” (5). And although our two brains co-exist uneasily, “human beings have always been prepared to work hard to enhance a natural ability” (6).
To put it more simply, it is possible to re-orient our focus towards a greater sense of love, compassion, and oneness. To offset or even stymie the impact of our built-in negativity bias. To function more fully from a place of compassion for ourselves and for others.
When we see the news for what it is and recognize that our brain has a hardwired attraction to negativity, it becomes obvious that we can and must more consciously approach our relationship with the news. With a sense of detachment we can step back and see things for what they are without judgement. That our craving comes from a deep seeded need for self-preservation, and the repeated trigger of our primal alarms keeps us separate from others, in a constant state of self-induced suffering.
Forging a new relationship with the news
Now that we can see the news is not a viable source for contentment and we further diminish our sense of ease by harming ourselves with unconscious consumption, where do we go from here?
First, let’s recognize that obsessive consumption is really a form of harm towards the self. Self-created suffering. Would you ever force your dearest friend or relative to read the news until they were exhausted and distraught, if you knew it would harm them? That would be unthinkable! And yet, multiple times a day we do this to ourselves. Let this be a gift to yourself. An act of self-love. If you feel unable to keep up with current topics without feeling harmed, then with tender love and compassion give yourself permission to not read the news. The only downside is that you might feel lighter and at ease fairly quickly!
“Yes, yes, yes, good idea,but I still feel such an urgent need to consume the news. I have to keep up. I might miss something. What if I don’t know what happened yesterday? It hurts to miss out. Ugh, it’s too much. I’m just reading headlines.”
Cravings can be a powerful driver. And our primal brain is hungry for food. But as Karen Armstrong noted (6), we have the ability to change this behavior if we put our mind to it. To calm this agitation. To soothe the fear and allow our suffering to subside. To do this we must redirect our attention. But how?
Meditation is the answer. There are varying types of meditation, forms of concentration to help us to liberate ourselves from our own suffering. As the Dalai Lama has said “we cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires”. Meditation is the salve for our harmful behaviors.
Now that we recognize that our news consumption keeps us locked in a primal way of thinking, cultivates negative emotions toward ourselves and others, brings about a sense of separation from the whole, and inflicts self-harm, we can see that loving kindness and compassion is the answer. And Metta (Loving kindness) Meditation is a focused practice that will bring us back to a full and compassionate heart, displace our craving with loving kindness, fill the void left by false hope, and reunite us with our sense of oneness.
As described by Thich Nhat Hanh, “Metta meditation is a practice of cultivating understanding, love, and compassion by looking deeply, first for ourselves and then for others. Once we love and take care of ourselves, we can be much more helpful to others. Metta meditation can be practiced in part or in full. Just saying one line of the metta meditation will already bring more compassion and healing into the world” (7).
When we dissolve the barriers that prevent us from treating ourselves with loving kindness, we are able to more fully extend love to others. Most importantly, extending love and compassion to ourselves displaces our negative emotions and allows us to see things as they truly are. To remove the veil of ignorance.
When we consume the news and allow ourselves to indulge in our anger or fear or anxiety or greed, we slowly stew in our own suffering. And eventually we pollute the world with rough waves of negativity that extend far beyond our comprehension.
But when we consistently practice meditation, rather than look at the news and become overwhelmed with negative emotion, we start to see that the world so desperately needs an antidote. We can see how our concentration can be part of the solution to curb our appetite and create a sense of ease. We can see how our meditation practice can help us to read the news (rather than consume it) from a detached and objective place. Without sadness. Without judgement. Without the fear of missing out. Without hatred. Without taking craving and negative emotions out into the world.
Like a stone dropped delicately on the surface of a placid lake, metta meditation sends concentric ripples of loving kindness and compassion out into the world. As we repeat the metta meditation, we rewrite our inner narrative and overwrite our neuro-pathways to forge a new relationship with the news. We can now consciously keep up with current events from a place of compassion, and we do not give in to our primal urges. The twitchy buzz subsides and we feel an unfettered sense of ease. Rather than obsessive craving, we are filled with an earnest wish for all beings to be at peace and free from suffering.
More on Metta Meditation
As described by Thich Nhat Hanh, this loving kindness meditation is adapted from “the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) by Buddhaghosa, a 5th-century systematization of the Buddha’s teachings” (8). I encourage you to read the full article on Tricycle Magazine to learn more about the deep and powerful intention behind the practice of metta, and incorporate this into your daily lives. Together we can heal the world.
May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May she be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May he be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May they be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May I be safe and free from injury.
May she be safe and free from injury.
May he be safe and free from injury.
May they be safe and free from injury.
May I be free from anger, afflictions, fear, and anxiety.
May she be free from anger, afflictions, fear, and anxiety.
May he be free from anger, afflictions, fear, and anxiety.
May they be free from anger, afflictions, fear, and anxiety.
Footnotes
Quentin Gooch, Ru-Yi Meditation Center, October 2021
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/doomsurfing-doomscrolling-words-were-watching, Merriam-Webster, “Words We’re Watching”, October 2021
Adolf S. Ochs, New York Times Masthead, 1897 - Present
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140728-why-is-all-the-news-bad, BBC News, “Psychology: Why Bad News Dominates The Headlines”, Tom Stafford, 28th July, 2014
Karen Armstrong, The Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, 2011, p.16
Karen Armstrong, The Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, 2011, p.21
https://tricycle.org/magazine/cultivating-compassion/, Cultivating Compassion, Thich Nhat Hanh, Spring 2015
https://tricycle.org/magazine/cultivating-compassion/, Cultivating Compassion, Thich Nhat Hanh, Spring 2015
