Title: How Negative News Distorts Our Thinking | Psychology Today
Headings: How Negative News Distorts Our Thinking
Austin Perlmutter M.D.
How Negative News Distorts Our Thinking
Three ways negative news engages cognitive biases, trapping us in negativity.
Putting It Together
Breaking the Cycle

Content: Before and after taking in the news, ask yourself how much you really learned. If you were mostly confirming what you already believed, it probably wasn’t that helpful of an experience. Consider turning off the news when you feel you’re getting angry or otherwise upset. Better yet, try a news fast for a week and see how you feel. To help mitigate the risks of availability bias, try to put negative information into context. Bad things happen every day, but this doesn’t mean that life is necessarily bad or getting worse. When you hear a negative statistic or about some recent disaster, you shouldn’t just write it off, but instead try to consider whether this is an isolated data point or actually part of a larger trend. The idea is that if you store new information in a more objective manner, it will give you a more balanced perspective when you later use it as a reference. article continues after advertisement
Finally, we come to confirmation bias. With so many opinions and data points floating around these days, it’s so easy to find confirmation for basically any opinion.