Selective disconnection, because now we reject the bad news - Lifestyle

Digital detox, disconnection are the words of the holidays, the ones that every year we wish to finally unplug and take time for something else, for ourselves, for relaxation, for a regenerating sweet idleness even if sometimes we are afraid of it to the point of suffer from oziophobia.

The novelty is that we always want this disconnection even now that the activities have resumed and we are back to the usual routine.

The amount of information we receive from everywhere and mainly through the smartphone is monstrous, excessive and so slowly more or less consciously we have learned to select, to activate the so-called

.

We make a selection trying to distinguish false, fake, piloted news, unmarking ourselves from those shamelessly propaganda - and in these pre-election times they abound - but above all by staying away more and more from bad news.

No bad news.

Are we cowards?

Perhaps, certainly we have put in place a self-defense mechanism because opening a newspaper, watching a news on TV, reading the loop and news sites is, let's face it, distressing.

News facts and not only, a kind of race to the upside to the tragedy and then in our hearts we do not want to know.

We feel guilty perhaps for not being informed but it is becoming a way to protect our mental health.

Is it a side effect of Covid that has made us ultra-sensitive to the issue of pain?

Perhaps.

The risk of 'addiction' that was around the corner in many crucial issues, from the landings of migrants to the war in Ukraine is unfortunately a reality to be reckoned with.

And then what?

Nothing, we don't want to hear bad news, just give us the good ones, the scientific discoveries, the technological advances, let us dream of a wonderful future world with prestigious researches, let us applaud the swimming champions, let us move with the stories that end well.

Maybe that's why Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have been getting married for a month, so with all those ceremonies and all those parties we get a little distracted.

This is irony but the theme is there

Read the

, where there is an in-depth analysis of the whole system starting with the boom of visual news on TikTok and Instagram, social networks that are now also a source of information for a young or young adult audience, this selective disconnection is a worldwide phenomenon, with peaks in America where 4 out of 10 Americans deliberately want to be misinformed about bad news.

But beyond the percentages, it is a trend to be told, thinking that we are all there in a bit, even those who are my case work in information.

The topics that are considered in general and by the media in particular the most important such as political crises, international conflicts, global pandemics and climate disasters, seem to be the very ones that are driving some people away from the news,

especially among those who are younger or more difficult to reach.

The report reads that the percentage of news consumers who say they avoid the news often or sometimes has increased dramatically in all countries.

This kind of

, has doubled in both Brazil (54%) and the UK (46%) over the past five years, in Italy to around 35%, with many respondents stating that news has a negative effect on the their mood.

Too much politics and Covid 19 represents one of the main reasons for avoiding news all over the world with 43%, the second, with 36% is because news has a negative effect on mood, 29% is because you define yourself 'out of stock' for the amount of news, the same percentage because they consider the news to be 'biased' and 17% because they are topics they would prefer to avoid.

Many news outlets are taking different approaches such as solution journalism on topics such as climate change, which aim to

or a

ANSA.it

Avoid 'too depressing' news, a trend for 4 out of 10 Americans - Lifestyle

Too depressing: this is the main reason why 42% of Americans, mostly women, often avoid news in the country of the fourth power, from the pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rising cost of living.

(HANDLE)

Amanda Ripley, a noted Time reporter and American writer, has begun training journalists to cover polarizing conflicts differently, in partnership with the 'Solutions Journalism Network'.

The reporter, who recently recounted her experience in the Washington Post, confesses that she pulled the plug from the news for years after going to a therapist, discovering that some of her colleagues did the same as her.

"If many of us feel intoxicated by our news, could there be something wrong with it?", She wondered, finding confirmation in the Reuters Institute research, according to which the news is disheartening, repetitive, of dubious credibility and leaves the reader with a feeling of helplessness.

The press seems to ignore

, that is, the ability to metabolize a perpetual avalanche of bad news.

"I don't think we are equipped, psychologically or mentally, to receive catastrophic and disorienting news and images 24 hours a day," explained colleague Krista Tippett, who was awarded the Humanities Medal by Barack Obama.

Readers can often feel really helpless reading news, articles about painful realities.

And finally, this is why more and more people are avoiding them.

Certain topics seem unsustainable to us to read, violence against women, unaccompanied minors arriving in Europe at risk of drowning on a boat, people under siege in Ukraine, a very long list of topics. readers feel that something can be done, in the first person for example.

By interviewing other experts, including doctors, scientists and psychologists, Ripley concluded that the media lack three ingredients: hope (the absence of which generates depression, anxiety, disease), action and dignity.

We should always find a way to glimpse the hope behind fear, to convert anger into possible solutions, to approach everyone with respect.

The so-called 'solution journalism'

what informs you about how to solve problems or highlighting what to learn from failures is probably the challenge for this job and to make you feel like you are back in the news.

A challenge that is not easy, but one that some are experiencing, such as the

, which is training over 25,000 journalists around the world and which is driving a global change in journalism, focusing on what is most often missing from the news: how people try to solve problems and what we can learn from their successes or failures ..