Good News Really Matters
According to Nieman Labs, we should be watching more positive news stories:
In our research, we found that spending as little as 2-4 minutes on Twitter or YouTube reading about the pandemic affected people’s moods adversely.
However, our latest study has found that looking at positive news stories — specifically, videos and articles featuring acts of kindness — can actually counteract the ill-effects of seeing negative news stories.
The article suggests that news organizations take a good look at covering positive news more often, to try and counterbalance the negative emotional and mental health effects of sharing negative stories 24 hours a day. That’s not a bad idea but I suspect this is something we all should be taking some personal responsibility for as well.
Instead of simply scrolling social media mindlessly taking in whatever the algorithms decide to show us, let’s figure out how to have more good news show up in our feeds. It’s not that we are ignoring the bad stuff that is going on in the world, or creating toxic positivity, but if we are to get through this life together, we need more stories that will balance out that negativity. Without that balance, I fear we are all headed for a very bleak outlook on the world and a bleak future to go along with it.
Let’s start the conversation, where do you go when you want to see some good news? Do you check out a site like Upworthy.com? Do you follow someone making fun content or beautiful art on social media? Do you find fun music on your favorite streaming app? What can we do to bring more kindness into our newsfeeds?
Where do you go to find the good in this world?
