Murder, war, and famine. What we doomscroll happens every day on earth. But we must understand that the news is a report of the worst that happens every given day. That is why we must balance our worldview.
Why we’re drawn to doomscrolling
There is a constant flow of bad news that inexorably washes over us on social media and the big news sites, every hour, every day. It’s easy to understand why we’re drawn to doomscrolling, especially right now. We are desperately trying to make sense of a year that has been disruptive and devastating in so many different ways.
We face many difficult problems and they deserve our attention, but we become so engrossed in what goes wrong that we completely miss what goes right.
The consequences are substantial if we only see a skewed selection of what is happening in the world. We can not imagine the opportunities and insights when a country is at peace, the population has access to clean drinking water, food, and access to electricity. These events don’t create headlines but are very significant and occur in more and more regions around the world.
The only way to see this development is by looking at statistics and data, for example from the UN and the World Bank.
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