On the 15th of April, 2013 As a throng of runners rushed past the finish line of Boston Marathon, the most prestigious race of all time. Boston Marathon, two bombs went off, only 10 seconds apart. Three people were killed in the blasts and one of them was an eight-year-old boy. A number of people were wounded. Sixteen people were left without limbs.
While the world mourned the tragedy, news agencies began months – or even years, if you include the test – of graphic coverage. The moments of the explosion, as well as the aftermath of the explosion, including smoke and confusion was broadcast in a series of broadcasts. Newspapers were littered with ominous images: blood-splattered streets distraught spectators, and visibly shaking victims whose clothes was torn off their bodies.
It was so that Holman and his colleagues at his department at the University of California, Irvine were in the middle of a national emergency, collecting data on the mental health of over 55,000 people right before the event. They set out to determine whether the situation had changed over the following weeks.
It’s obvious that being physically present during the duration of – or directly affected by the aftermath of a terrorist attack will be detrimental in terms of your psychological health. There were a few participants in the study who were first-hand witnesses to the attacks, and it was true that their health was affected. However, there was another surprise.
A different group was more shaken by the event individuals who had not experienced the blast personally, yet been exposed to six or more minutes of coverage every day during the following week. It is interesting that knowing that someone was wounded or even died or was within the area when the explosion took place was not as reliable of high-acute stress.
“It was an aha moment for us” Holman says. Holman. “I believe that many people do not realize the impact the news can be able to have.”
It is evident that the news is from a neutral source of information. From our views on immigrants to the contents of our fantasies it is able to sneak into our minds and interfere within our everyday lives in unexpected ways. It could lead us to underestimate certain risks, alter our perceptions of foreign nations, and even affect the health of whole economies. It could increase the risk to develop post-traumatic stress depression and anxiety. It is now becoming clear that the emotional impact of news coverage may impact our physical health, increasing our risk of having an attack on our heart or developing health issues years afterward.
It is crucial to note that just a few minutes each day can impact your life that is far greater than you think. Why?
Since the first indications of a new, mysterious virus started to surface from China in the year 2000, telecast news has had record-setting viewership numbers, as viewers avidly watch regular government briefings and news on the latest deaths such as lockdown regulations and information to use for their own analysis.
However, in the year 2020, these sources aren’t the sole, or even the only method of keeping up-to-date on the latest news. When you add streaming services, podcasts radio and social media, as well as websites that often provide us with notifications throughout the day, along with the links shared by our friends, it becomes apparent that we’re immersed in a puddle of information every day, from the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to bed each evening.
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It’s surprising that very only a few studies have examined the ways in which this all relates and in 2018 – prior to being confined to our houses with the unfolding of a global crisis all around us – an average American spent an average of eleven hours a day staring at screens, where news about world events is difficult to keep from. A lot of us use our primary devices for news delivery and mobile phones when we go to bed.
Hardwired effects
One possible reason that the news can affect us so deeply is the known as “negativity bias” known as a psychological flaw that causes us to focus more on the negative things going on around us.
It is believed to have evolved to safeguard us from threats and helps clarify why the flaws of a person are more apparent than their strengths, and why the burden of losses is more than gains and the reason why fear can be more motivating than opportunities. The government even incorporates it into their policies in a dilemma between giving an incentive that is positive or negative to the general public and the latter is more likely to be successful.
The bias could be a factor in the fact that news isn’t always a cheerful event. One website that was that of the City Reporter, based in Russia was forced to provide only good news on one day in 2014, they saw a drop of two-thirds of their readers. According to the writer of science fiction Arthur C Clarke put it that the news of Utopia will be extremely boring.
Could this additional negative ray of light be influencing our views?
For decades, scientists have recognized that the majority of people tend to have a bleak outlook regarding the future of their nation’s economy. However, in reality, this doesn’t have to be the reality. There is a reality of “economic cycles” that are fluctuations in the economy that occur between growth and hardship can be considered one of the fundamental tenets of modern economics. It is backed by years of study and experience.
The notion that the future will always be more difficult is a blatant lie. It’s also potentially harmful. If people believe that they won’t find a job or money in five years’ time, they’re not likely to invest which is bad to the economy. When taken to its most extreme level, our optimism could turn into a self-fulfilling prediction There’s evidence to suggest that the news could be a factor in the cause.
For instance, a study in 2003 revealed that news about the economy was more likely to be negative than positive and that the coverage was a major indicator of people’s expectations. This is in line with other studies and studies, including one in the Netherlands which revealed that the news coverage on the economy is often not in line with actual economic developments – painting an image that was more bleak than actual situation. The consistent negative tone of reporting influenced the opinions of the public away from what actual indicators of the state of the economy might suggest. In the last few years the authors of a study even went as to say that media coverage can amplify times of sustained economic expansion or contraction.
The news is causing a shift in our perceptions of reality but not necessarily to our advantage. Another instance is the perception we have of the risk.
Explore for instance global tourism. Like you would expect, most people aren’t keen to go to places of turmoil in the political landscape, war, or high threat of terrorism. In certain instances news reports can be an effective source of advice regarding these issues – delivering instructions from the government to say return home during an outbreak of a global pandemic. Even if there’s no formal advice on how to avoid – or a the rational reason to do so influence our subconscious biases and weaknesses in our thought processes.
The most common way for this to occur is through “framing effects” that is, the method in which something – like an event or a choice is presented can affect how you view it. For instance, a medicine that is “95 percent efficient” in treating a condition seems better than the one that “fails 5percent of the times”. The results are identical, but as a couple of economists realized throughout the 70s and 1980s – we aren’t always thinking rationally.
In one study researchers presented participants with news stories that included similar however with different assertions about the instability of the political system or terrorist attacks They were able to influence their opinion of how dangerous the country appeared. For instance, saying that the terrorist attack was the result of “al-Qaeda and related militant Islamic groups” was significantly more alarming than declaring “Domestic militant separatists” although both words have the identical significance.
Sometimes these subtle influences could result in life or death consequences.
A study from 2014 found that the general public views cancers that are often featured in the media – like brain cancer, for instance – as more common than they really are and those that aren’t frequently mentioned – like men’s reproductive cancers – are believed to occur less often than they actually are. The people that consume the highest amount of media typically have the worst views.
The study, which was conducted by the expert in health communication Jakob Jensen from the University of Utah together with researchers from all over the United States, raises some troubling possibilities. Do people underestimate their risks of developing certain cancers and therefore ignoring the warning signs early? Studies have demonstrated that the person’s perceptions of their own risk may influence their behaviour, and researchers suggest that this could be a side effect.
But that’s not all.
It is interesting to note that the public’s perception of the likelihood of developing cancer is closely aligned with federal funding to study its causes and treatments. Jensen and his colleagues propose that the media’s coverage could influence public perception which, in turn may influence the distribution of resources from government. (Although it’s also possible the media and the public reinforce one another).
In addition, there’s evidence that news may be able to penetrate our fantasies.
As a result of the current worldwide lockdowns, a huge number of people – or anecdotally at the very least report dreams that are incredibly vivid and terrifying. One possible explanation is that these “pandemic dreaming” are caused by our imaginations being wildly active, because many people have been cut off from the world. Another reason is that we’re able to remember our dreams more than we normally would because we’re waking up anxiously during REM sleep, which is the stage during which dreams occur.
They may also be related to the way that the crisis is depicted by news media. Studies have shown that 9/11’s attacks caused significant increases in the number of nightmares that posed danger. There was a clear connection between the change in the dreams and exposure to the events shown on television. “This isn’t the case when you listened to them on radio, or when talking to family and friends about the events” states Ruth Propper, a psychologist at Montclair State University, New Jersey who was the lead researcher of the study. “I think that what this suggests is that it’s triggered by the images of death. They’re emotionally traumatic.”
News can be bad for us.
It turns out that being apathetic to the pain of seven billion people to quote another writer of science fiction not the best for our mental health.
After months of continuous news concerning Covid-19, there are signs of an imminent crises of coronavirus anxiety. Mental health clinics around the globe are reporting record amounts of demand, and numerous people are opting to take “social holiday from media” to try to limit their exposure to media.
Although some of the anxiety could be due to the current reality we’re all living Psychologists have recognized for a long time that media itself can bring to the toxic. This is evident especially after an event that has caused a crisis. Following this year’s Ebola crisis and the 9/11 attacks the 2001 anthrax attack, as well as the 2007 Sichuan Earthquake, for example the more news coverage someone was exposed to the greater chance to experience symptoms such as stress anxiety, and PTSD.
The impact of news stories is an unanswerable psychological issue as the majority of it does not directly affect us or even at all. If it does, numerous studies have shown that – similar to instances like the Boston Marathon Bombings – the news coverage may be more detrimental to the mental wellbeing of people than actual situation.
One possibility is “affective forecasting” which is an effort to determine how people will be feeling concerning something we encounter in the near-term. Based on Rebecca Thompson, a psychologist at the University of Irvine, most people are pretty certain that they can accomplish this. “Like If you could imagine that you won the lottery today you’d believe you’d be feeling great,” she says.
Strangely enough, asking people about how they feel following these “life-changing” incidents and find that they tend to have less influence on our moods than we imagine. A well-known study in 1978 looked at the happiness of people who recently had their lives changed by winning a lottery or being paralyzed. The winners of the lottery were no happier than the control group and only slightly more than accident victims. In the end, we do not know what the future holds for us as well as we think we do.
The same happens in the time of a crisis. Thompson says that in the present the majority of people will focus on their future stress. While they are there this faulty thinking is guiding us toward unhealthy behaviors.
“If you’re faced with a significant threat to your personal life, that’s something you’re worried about, it’s common to collect as much information on it as you can in order that you know the situation,” says Thompson. This can lead us to the trap of over-consuming the news.
For instance people who believed they had a higher chance to suffer from post-traumatic stress following Hurricane Irma was a force to be reckoned with in Florida in September of 2017 were also more likely to consume most news leading before it. In reality, they were the ones with the most negative psychological effects however Thompson believes this is largely due to the volume of stressful news the media exposed them to. Thompson points out that a lot of the news coverage was sensationalized, with footage of reporters on television being tossed around by strong winds and rain , while highlighting the worst-case scenarios.
In actual fact there is a risk that stories about crises in the news cause us to be apathetic about particular issues, but everything else we do such as our finances to our relationships with our partners. A study from 2012 found that women – and, surprisingly not men who were influenced through reading news stories that were negative tend to be more stressed from other problems which led to an increase in the levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
“Men typically have high levels of cortisol and it could be that they aren’t able to go much higher.” claims Marie-France Marin an anthropologist at the University of Quebec in Montreal who co-authored the study. However, women were more likely to remember the negative news, suggesting that they were actually more affected.
Negative news can also have the ability to raise the heart rate of an individual as well as cause anxiety indicators that this could be more harmful to our health over the long term.
When Holman and his colleagues studied the impact of stress on The 9/11 terrorist attacks, they discovered that people who been diagnosed with high blood pressure in the immediate aftermath were 53% more likely suffer from cardiovascular problems over the following three years regardless of factors like their previous health status were considered.
In a recent study the team looked into whether the media itself was the cause. They discovered that exposure to more than four hours of news coverage of the first day of 9/11 was associated with a higher chance of developing health issues afterward.
“What’s particularly remarkable about this study is the fact that most people only learned about 9/11 through mass media.” Holman says. Holman. “But they also experienced the long-lasting impacts. This makes me think it’s possible that something is happening and we must know the cause of this.”
What is it that makes events occurring to strangers, often many thousands of miles from us can have such an impact on us?
Holman has a few thoughts that she has, among them that the vivid images that are seen in the media that are telecast are at fault. She says that at times, the news plays in the background when she’s exercising and she’ll observe that throughout the duration of the reporter’s reporting and they’ll see the same images repeated repeatedly. “You’ve been able to see the same images introduced into your brain Repeat, repeat and repeated. What we’re watching isn’t a scary movie which is fake. We’re actually looking at real things. I’m guessing that this is what gives them so much impact.”
Holman says that the news business isn’t or hasn’t ever been about merely report on one event after another. It’s an entertainment form which the media use to fight for our time. A lot of these organizations depend on revenue from advertising and therefore, they need to add an element of drama in order to entice the viewers to keep interested. This is why the rewards for being the most watched are a lot. In America anchors of news are hugely famous, often earning millions of dollars per year.
When they’re covering tragic events, news outlets frequently find ways to add an extra jolt of tension. Following bombings at the Boston Marathon bombings, coverage frequently included the most urgent, sensationalizing texts like “new information” as well as “brand new photos of bombs from the marathon”.
Holman is already analyzing the way that the news coverage about the Covid-19 virus is impacting us, even though her findings aren’t yet published. “I would like to could say that I believe that it’s fine that we’ve been covered’ however I believe there will be lasting consequences for certain people,” she says.
The reason for this, Holman suggests, is that global dramas haven’t been more easily accessible to us. Today, we can be a part of an entire collective experience from any place around the world, just as if it were taking place right just across the street. This poses a problem to our mental well-being.
If you’re tempted to read at the news for the hundredth times this day, or browsing through your social media feed, remember that the news may be more influential than you anticipated.
