News - why always negative? why always dummy? It's boring!!!

Introduction

Since a very long time I am totally disgusted by the information broadcast by the public/non-public TV (or newspaper) news. Most of it concentrates on a very negative issues and I think it has a bad influence on people. I feel it has a bad influence on me. That's why I would like to share my opinion concerning this subject with you. Also, I want to share an idea on how this problem could be solved.

Common subjects that I see in the Internet news (and simply scroll over them) go like "A politician X said that politician Y is an idiot", "5 people died in a car accident .... bla bla..", "plain crashed.... somewhere near a country I never heard about" . Some of that news are real tragedies that we really need to be familiar with (so that they never happen again). On the other hand some of them are of really minor importance or even just a total bullshit.

Today I asked myself, why do people need to be informed almost only about this bad and dummy stuff? I don't like to read only about bad things all the time and would really appreciate something positive. Bad news make me feel sad, confused, unhappy ... just bad feelings there. Is there any particular reason why media do this? Why can't they simply balance positive with negative? Do all people simply like to read about bad stuff? If yes (which I don't believe), then why am I so different?

The problem with Media

The problem is that media see (btw. maybe that's what they want) a group of people as a single consumer. They do not filter their news and present them in the same way to all of us. It does not matter if you are a student, a cook or a Nobel price winner. You will all get to read the same news everybody does. This is a bad approach and I think here is where the problem appears. We all are different! The information presented to us must be personalized, otherwise it may be totally irrelevant and may affect our personality by pushing it out of its balance. This stuff is serious! Irrelevant information may affect our lives quite seriously. How? Keep reading.

Unique personalities

You see, every single one of us has a unique personality, different needs, desires, expectations, etc. What is interesting to one does not necessarily has to be interesting to the other. Of course, there are some behaviors which are more or less common to all of us. As an example, we all share the desire of staying up to date with the stuff that happens on our planet. The problem is that we are not able to consume all the information that is available to us. It is simply too much data out there and we are only able to process a small fraction of it. Since we consume the data through the process of reading, listening or through the vision, if we concentrate on unimportant data, we loose the time to get familiar with the important one. Therefore we would really appreciate if the information would be filtered according to our criteria an then presented to us so that we don't waste the time to do it ourselves.

Staying in balance with yourself

I stated before that irrelevant information may affect our lives quite seriously. Here's why I think so.

Lets imagine a simple guy who works all day long for some big company which pays him junk money for his hard job. When he comes back home and reads the news (the unfiltered, bad and dummy information) he probably feels happy! Yes, happy!!! Happy that he has a job, that he is alive, that he has a wife and kids and that they are alive and healthy. The news he just read force his brain to think about stuff he would never think otherwise. Mentally he needs to keep the "good" and the "bad" stuff in his life in balance, otherwise he would go crazy. Bad news he just read magnify the value of the stuff in his life that was not so bad to the levels where it can be accepted as good. The guy is happy with his bullshit salary, crappy job position, wife and kids he does not actually know that well. He's happy because he thinks, hey, there are people on this planet who don't even have what I do! That's something to be proud of. What I have is enough and makes me happy. His brain will stay in this balance until it receives the next portion of the some sort of data (e.g. a portion of "positive" news).

Crazy, but I can imagine that this is the main reason why people actually like to read this kind of stuff. The message "your life does not suck that much" seems to be very attractive to many of us. It is easier to balance yourself in the negative direction (that is to "make to bad look good"). The other case may require some extra effort (that is to actually "have the good"). People are lazy, we don't like extra effort.



Hmmm, and what would the guy think if he didn't read the news at all (I mean totally at all)? Yeah.. in many cases (not all of course) by seeing most of his colleges or neighbors having better live then he does he would think "Shit! Something is wrong here, I suck, those guys live better then I do, what can I do to become like they are.. to improve the quality of my life? They did it so I know I also can do it!". It would seem negative to the guy but in a sense it would also motivate him to do more (which on the other hand is extremely positive). As I said, the first feeling is negative because having to balance in the positive direction requires some extra work (like e.g. to learn smth, look for a new job, talk to the boss, etc.).

NOTE: The theoretical way of thinking in the above paragraph applies to members of non-communistic or post-communistic counties only. In such countries a guy would probably think more something like this: "What can I do to make the life of my neighbors suck as much as my life does". In this situation, the guy does not want to improve his qualities to reach his psychological balance ("have the good") but rather causes his neighbors (which were the actual cause of putting him in psychological imbalance) to degrade to his level. This also puts the guy in the desired, balanced position. The side effect is that the neighbors are then out of the balance (no longer "have the good"), but who cares anyway :-).

This was a very theoretical example of a single person being affected by the news. The problem with the "your life could suck more" message is that it affects all of the important people who surround us like a virus. Family members who could actually be good at motivating us to do more, do exactly the opposite, they believe in "the message" and force you to do the same. They don't believe in you, which makes you do the same too. Very negative stuff.

This is why I think that news have to be personalized. They may cause a lot of harm to people who do not filter them by themselves. A potentially smart and creative people can be wasted by the inappropriate information presented to them in the news. The solution to the "family virus" problem may be much harder to find.

My feelings about the news

Coming back to the news subject. When I see such a negative news, they generate only bad feelings in me! Only bad!! Why? I don't like the "your life does not suck so much" message at all because I differ extremely from the "common" consumer image. Most of you probably also do. This kind of news suck to all highly motivated people.
I would rather see the news saying "The cooperated work of Politician X and politician Y lead to improvement of the ... bla bla bla", "The genius student of our [some university name] invented a .... " or "Our local companies gain respect on the international market ...". Of course our world is not perfect. There is some bad stuff we need to be informed about (wars, serious accidents, ecological catastrophes, etc.) but I would be happy to see it mixed with some positive news simply to keep them in a healthy balance. I am creative guy and want to stay that way.

To all unhappy news consumers

To all of you who feel like they want to puke when they see the news. I guess, you're bettor of not reading the news at all. Instead try to talk to your friends, buy yourself magazines containing information that is really interesting to you. Also, throw your TV and Radio out of the window and see what happens in your live after the first month without it. You may be surprised.

To the media. How to make the news personalized?

Well, the idea is simple. Make your web app learn about the person clicking news links. Get to know this person's personality. In a simple scenario, simply mark your news as "positive" or "negative" ("optimistic" or "pessimistic") and count the clicks (yes, just like Google does). If the guy is more interested in positive news, show him more of the positive ones. If he likes to read about political affairs, mark that and show him more news about it. People will decide which news help them stay in their psychological balance and you will filter the news appropriately for them. It's that simple! Do it!