I work with teenagers, and their concerns can often sound like this:
‘What’s the point, Miss? I’m not going to get a job anyway, I’ll have this awesome education but I’ll be living in a cardboard box’
‘You guys have totally screwed up the environment for us – they’ll be nothing left to fix!’
‘If we’re the future, how come you don’t let us vote on it?’
Do we have to study the news? It's all so depressing!
Of course, this is all concerning. I worry about them. If this is the talk we hear in the classroom, how does it bode for their mental health? What kind of Earth do they they are inheriting they think they're inheriting, and if it's all doom and gloom, no wonder they feel such resistance against the world that's raising them. I see their anxiety as they approach exams, pinning everything on a score that they have been misled to believe dictates their future and their involvement in the world, but perhaps the state of the education system is for another time.
For the first time in the history of Mission Australia’s Youth Survey Report, mental health was on the top of the list:
According to Beyond Blue, in any given year there are over a million Australian adults experiencing depression, and over 2 million have anxiety.
@eco-train's question of the week asks whether negative media and biases are responsible for depression.
My first response was a screaming yeeessss! Anecdotally, I watched my husband rage at the television and the radio and the headlines for a long time. I could feel my own anxiety rising as he argued uselessly about America's involvement with the Middle East while I myself became lost in rabbit holes about mining and the Great Barrier Reef or the plight of asylum seekers in detention on Manus Island. This news-diving was all as I was suffering terrible anxiety myself and the conversations about it just made it worse. We were just so helpless and powerless. The world was fucked and there was nothing we could do about it except for things that'll blot it out - another bottle of wine, a pill, a mind numbing show on Netflix, sex and drugs and rock and roll. Or becoming a toucan.
And if all that fails, not getting out of bed for a week and constantly crying can be an option too. Depression often arises from a lack of control - a powerlessness due to circumstance or belief in one's own powerlessness. Consider, for example, the depression that can arise surrounding the loss of a loved one. What can we do against the permanence of death? Consider more broadly our social circumstance - gender, poverty, social class - all contributing to how much power we have in the world.
Consider this in the tsunami of negative news that swamps us daily, it's little wonder we feel powerlessness, which logically can lead to depression. So yeah, if we're concerned about humanity at all, it's no wonder we can feel that negative media contributes to our mental health.
Yet... can we really say that they are responsible?
Not really. We're buying it. We're clicking on it. And they know that, of course, but they're in the business of selling news - it's a supply and demand thing. @likedeeler said that well in his answer to the question here.
Our brains are totally wired for negative news. We are far more likely to remember, say, where we were on 9/11 because of the negative imprint it makes on our mind. We're far more likely to say that the week has been a shocker even though we've had lots of lovely moments. A bad day lasts into our week longer, affecting our mood. We process negative data faster and more thoroughly. This is a basic amygdala response, the flight or fight instinct - we have to process bad shit fast so we can survive. A garden hose is a snake before it's a garden hose. Therefore, in terms of responsibility, maybe we've trained journalists to report more on the bad than the good.
Trussler and Soroka's study invited volunteers for a 'eye tracking study', asking them to read from a news site and to read articles and watch videos based on the kind of political news they'd like to read.
So it’s us that has the negativity bias. Bad news is a signal, perhaps, that we have to change what we’re doing to avoid danger. In research, flashes of negative words like ‘terrorist’ make us react far faster than a word like ‘holiday’. Thus, we pay more attention to negative words in headlines anyway. Trussler and Soroka also believed that possibly, we think the world is better than it is – we expect a positive outcome so the bad news is actually surprising and interesting. Maybe this is why I find dystopian fiction so intriguing – my life is nothing like the apocalypse that entertains me.
However, if we are consuming negative news at a rate far faster than we can process it, or are focussing on it far more than is healthy, then we risk dangers to our mental health. If it's all we are consuming, if it's all we are fed (and I think of my students again, truly believing that a bad future is inevitable in a media onslaught reporting the death of coral reefs, high rates of unemployment and so on) then we're bound to get depressed. We're bound to feel powerless against all of that.
Surely, then, it's up to us to be a little more aware of what we focus upon? There is a huge drive to bring mindfulness into schools (again, a conversation for another post) and I've talked about awareness and consciousness before as a way to access joy by bringing us into the present moment. If students are aware of where they're being misled and manipulated, and can choose to make choices about what they are consuming and believing, then they have more power in their lives. If they are conscious that they are focussing on the negative, they can then make the right choices to empower themselves.
I've watched students time and time again be inspired by celebrities endorsing positive social action, or underdogs achieving brilliance. The more we can teach them to turn away from negative bias toward more useful media, the more empowered they are going to be. Whether that's enough to ward off depression, I don't know. There's a whole heap of social issues that influence our state of mind. However, it's a useful strategy. We know that mindful thinking can help check us when we are going down well worn paths that don't serve us (I'm a failure, I panic when I go into an exam, I'm never going to be popular) and help rewire our brains, so the same logic applies when digesting media.
Thus, I propose educating with a focus on our inner ducks.
If we can channel our inner ducks, we can choose to focus on the good things that serve us well. We can choose to focus on our power to effect good change in the world. We can focus on nurturing our heartspace, loving those around us, creating the world we want to live in. Listen to the good stuff. Pay attention to the beauty in the world and all that negative bollocks fades into the background.
All images come from the very loved and very brilliant Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig. Do yourself a favour and check out his brilliant work here
Totally agreed. We have an imbalance of negativity in news media and that's resonating on social media, where people endlessly perpetuate bad or enraging news for more and more clicks. The other horrible aspect is how much it's polarizing us by showing us the worst in "the other side" and persuading us to hate each other. I talked about this at length in a post I made a few days ago that was a self critique of the left. People on the right believe that we're all social justice warriors literally burning buildings to the ground in response to someone who used the wrong pronoun coming to speak at a college campus, and people on the left believe that the right are all assault rifle carrying white supremacists who are going to murder all minority groups in their sleep. Both of those extremes are not at all representative of the majority, and in reality, most of us essentially want the same things, but we're all backing the wrong horse and supporting the worst people in an effort to keep our "tribe" on top.
Absolutely. That's a discussion I have with my students in the classroom. Be careful of the politicized, polarising identity politics that divide us, and be careful of being in your own bubble. It's also my protest against the commemoration of war in Australia. It all smacks of not being aware of the forces that manipulate us into divisive tribes.
Thanks for reading. May your inner duck be powerful, always.
ah! love the inner duck meme. talented art i can get down with. i definitely agree with your perspective here.
this is very true. just as in personal life events (not just the news)... the challenging situations tend to stick... these sticky emotions. i do tend to think that the media does focus more on negative news. sure in our little circles there are bright moments and we can choose to focus on the good news, but honestly if you turn the tv on... at least "local news" stations all around the united states, you're gonna be bombarded with some pretty awful crap .i know this shapes many people's perspective of the world and they're very fearful because of it. little do they know that that's one sliver of reality... "but did you hear what happened on the news?!" great post, dear, happy to see you writing for the QOTW! just so you know the tag is ecotrain (you can't change the first one, but you will be able to add ecotrain as your 5th tag) and it's @ecotrain #ecotrain... which is confusing cuz @eco-alex has a hyphen but the others dont. much love! xx
Hah, I was lucky to even get dressed or spell psychology right this morning - thanks. Yes, the media does choose to focus on negative news because that's what sells. In the end Jamie did turn off and is much more selective about what he chooses to listen to these days. Not to say we don't read and be aware, we just can't wallow in it. I think it's a bit better if you KNOW that's what's going on, because then we can be more dismissive of it and less fearful and driven by it. I think that's what I want my students to know. Don't allow your perspective to be shaped by the mainstream media - be aware of it and how it works, and go searching for other truths out there and form a more informed vision of your world rather than one based on fear. And choose to switch off, too. Sometimes we just can't do anything about it - far better to just affect our local environments in the best way we can to make the best difference we can.
Thanks for encouraging me to write a response.
resteemed!! xx
thanks @the-hearth xxxx -
It was very influential. Continue on.
Thanks. X
amazing answer @riverflows.. and thank you for sharing with us about how our youth and kids are feeling.. because i dont have any idea about how they perceive the world these days..
You've given me a lot of food for thought... thank You!
You're welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed my response. I really loved having the opportunity to answer an #ecotrain question!
Kids are under a lot of pressure, but at the same time, they are absolutely brilliant beings and I really resent anyone who goes on the 'youth of today' rant as it's really inaccurate.
But then without all that negative media what would the inimitable Leunig do?! He sure is able to fight the blues out of my corner.
Your monograph was totally on the nose.
Start with that mindfulness well before you get depressed, though. (Baking bread and wooden toys go a long way)
I tried cheering my (dysphoric) sister up with the Prometheus cartoons and she only responded: What's funny about being chained to a rock when you know you can't ever escape? Yep, she is diagnosed with Autism, besides.
If we keep autiforming our kids they'll end up in the same slow lane down hill.
A sense of humour and contact with the world about us first hand is the only way up.
The whole Prometheus
Sense of humour is the only thing that gets me through lol... Leunig is a wizz. As are ducks. Prometheus gets funnier the further down you go. I dont think I have paid attention to that before!!!
It's a very difficult world for young people for sure. I know my 16 and almost 20 yo's definitely deal with the existential dread. At this point our direction just seems so uncertain. So many are waking up, but then we have teenage nazis shooting up schools and a very uncertain situation with our planet and a whole lot of grown adults who seem sort of meh about actually doing anything. I really don't wonder that they are flailing. I want to tell them different, but I can't always feel it myself. I think the best we can do is focus on all the people waking up. There are so many, and it could make a big difference. In any case, whether we make a dent in depression or not, at the very least we would have improved the media.
And oh my God I want to be a toucan!!!!!!!
He he, toucan sounds like an awesome option doesn't it? And they don't have toucan shooting season as far as I know, so better longevity than a duck.
We don't have school shootings in Australia, geez we feel for you over here but fail to understand the gun thing at all, I'm sorry.
I like to think the best of our youth rather than focus on the negative. A lot of them will grow up to be amazing human beings that will do what they can to make the world a better place. I see so many wonderful kids that I choose to focus on that rather than the worry. jarrah's just hit 21 and I reckon he's got out of that existential darkness thank god.
Indeed! I'm in Belize, and the toucan is the national bird, so I'm totally protected!
The gun situation in the US is very concerning. Of course some of them are just morons, but there are others who genuinely fear the immense power of the US government. I maintain that there are few other militarys that could take on the US military. Some citizen militia guerilla thing would have basically zero chance. The US government is definitely headed in a dark direction, but I don't think guns are a reasonable way to go about changing that. It has rarely worked out well in the past - at least long term.
Anyway, I absolutely agree about young people. I totally think they are amazing and creating changes long needed. Most of them are very woke. I only understand their despondence when they look at the daunting tasks they are facing and a lot of grown ups who are just not caring. All my teenage children's friends are just delightful and beautiful people. I think my almost 20 yo is almost out of the existential dread, and I am surely glad to see that end.
Thankyou!!! xx