Research shows that certain types of news coverage can produce emotional responses associated with stress and that the biggest effect comes from traumatic events covered in a sensational way*
A recent survey of more than 2,500 Americans has found that about 1 in 4 said they had experienced a “great deal” of stress in the previous month. And these stressed-out people said one of the biggest contributors to their day-to-day stress was watching, reading or listening to the news.
It might not give you PTSD, depression, or an anxiety disorder—unless you’re already pre-disposed toward those conditions—but it may make you feel a general negative malaise with the world. “Everything’s kinda bad.” “Why should I vote? It’s not gonna help.” “I could donate money but there’s just gonna be another kid who’s starving next week.” Not exactly happy, you might say.
Mary McNaughton-Cassill is a professor at the University of Texas–San Antonio and a leading researcher on the connection between media consumption and stress. She says that “There is so much more news available, and so many different channels that are competing, that they’re trying harder to be sensational.” And it’s the traumatic events covered in a sensational way that create the most negative effects on media consumers.
We speak with Mary McNaughton-Cassill, author of Mind the Gap: Coping With Stress in the Modern World.
mary mcnaughton cassill_bad news stress
Left-click to listen; right-click to save.
Sources used for this post and interview | New York Magazine: What All This Bad News Is Doing to Us by Jesse Singal (Aug. 8, 2014) | National Public Radio: Bingeing On Bad News Can Fuel Daily Stress by Jon Hamilton (July 10, 2014) | NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health: The Burden of Stress in America (July 7, 2014) | The Globe and Mail: Death, doom and despair: Are the movies keeping it too real? by Johanna Schneller (Aug. 8, 2014) | Salon: War is turning us into Facebook monsters by Merissa Nathan Gerson (Aug. 10, 2014) |
*http://ourbetterhealth.org/2014/07/25/bingeing-on-bad-news-can-fuel-daily-stress/
from Twitter
MSNBC news host Chris Hayes calls it on Monday August 11, 2014
This summer is just one goddamned terrible thing after another.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 11, 2014
