I actively try to avoid any type of news/media. I have de-activated my Facebook account. I don’t read newspapers or magazines.

Total connectivity

My friend was in New Zealand a couple of months back. This is quite literally the other side of the world to where I live. While he was there an severe earthquake struck the island. According to him, he was reading about the earthquake on belgian news sites 10 minutes after it happened.

In this day and age we can follow everything that happens in the world by unlocking our smartphones. Before the existence of internet and total connectivity bad (and good) things happened as well but people far away just wouldn’t know about it. If the earthquake would of happened 300 years ago then only a very small percentage of people in the world would know and therefore worry about it.

Living in fear

Because of this bombardment of mostly negative news it seems most people think we live in a world full of terror and misery. I think I remember reading somewhere that we currently live in the safest period the human world has ever seen.

The latest development related to ISIS and terrorism is especially insiduous. People are staying away from public gatherings and leaning on the safe side. But casualties of terrorist attacks, however tragic, are only an extremely small minority. What is, statistically speaking, the chance that you will be in such a situation?

The media is infesting people’s minds with worst-case scenarios. It’s negativity overload.

My contribution, or lack thereof

The majority of world events have zero affect on the course of my life and the lives of billions of others. Does my knowing of the event of the earthquake have any effect, let alone a positive one, on anyone? Probably not. This ties back nicely to the stoic idea of not worrying about things you can’t control.

And even though I try to avoid it, news always finds a way to slip through the net. You might hear a small snippet of news on the radio or your colleagues are discussing recent events right next to you. If something is THAT important, it will arrive at your conscious soon enough. No need to go looking for it.

Shit happens

To be clear I’m not saying that I don’t feel bad when bad things happen because I do. Hearing about negative news has a negative affect on me. Catastrophies can have major effects on the people involved and I don’t wish that to anyone. I’m saying that I will avoid feeling bad if I can, especially if neither I or anyone else have anything to gain by me feeling bad.

I will admit that it’s an easy stance to take. I probably can’t help anyone so let me just ignore all of it. But every second spent pondering without action from my side is a second wasted and might cripple my happiness.