Armed with the Socratic method, it becomes apparent the word obsession is to monomania what chewing is to eating. In oth

Here’s another important reason: Most news doesn’t affect you at all. For example, a hit-and-run in another town, a drug bust, a sex scandal, someone killing themselves, etc. You only have limited mental energy each day; why waste it on negative things you have no control over?

Generally, on social media, people only share the best things that happen. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, as Dr. Meg Jay wrote in The Defining Decade, people start to feel unhappy with their own lives in comparison:

For example, some Westerners think poorly about regions like Africa because, frankly, the media only shows “bad” news from there. (But if they visited, they would see it’s nowhere near as bad and locals can actually be happy.)

That’s a lot of ideas for one essay. Maybe they’re a little too disconnected, I don’t know. I hope you get, a little bit, the spirit of what I am trying to say to you. If you want me to sum it up more simply, take a look at the pic above. Little puppy, big world. That’s not just Snowy. That’s me and you, too.

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mirage. It was co-living on borrowed time. Because the thing is, both my roommates and I had still not faced a serious Covid-19 challenge together in real time. When the pandemic kicked off, we fractured and fled instead of talking about how our household would adapt. When we did eventually talk, it was from separate households, where we had no day-to-day obligation to care for each other during a dangerous chapter of the pandemic. Two weeks ago, as we careened toward the worst Covid-19 outbreak yet, a single text from Claire announcing her return flight was an electric jolt of reality.

When I was a kid, I was miserable, hated life, and didn’t think things could improve: I had a traumatic childhood and was teased by other kids for being so “angry.” I knew I couldn’t go the rest of my days with so much negativity, tension, and pain, so I committed to change. And after a decade of studying hundreds of books, journaling thousands of pages, and testing countless strategies, I was able to reinvent my life to be happier than I’ve ever been.

Sure, it’s easy to think that a few life hacks, breathing exercises, and affirmations are going to transform everything and make you content. But it’s far easier to be happy in life when you’re not actively engaged in making yourself unhappy. So rather than adding more things to your life, it’s far more effective and practical to eliminate what hurts our happiness in the first place.

I do make exceptions for major events of serious impact, but I generally avoid all news. First, it’s a massive stressor. From a study by the American Psychological Association:

That’s a lot of ideas for one essay. Maybe they’re a little too disconnected, I don’t know. I hope you get, a little bit, the spirit of what I am trying to say to you. If you want me to sum it up more simply, take a look at the pic above. Little puppy, big world. That’s not just Snowy. That’s me and you, too.

Many people get accustomed to negativity, stress, and frustration whether it’s from their social circle or what they see. Here are two changes that removed my biggest offenders:

“Rather than a way of catching up, Facebook can be one more way of keeping up. What’s worse is that now we feel the need to keep up not just with our closest friends and neighbors, but with hundreds of others whose manufactured updates continually remind us of how glorious life should be.”

“More than half of Americans say the news causes them stress, and many report feeling anxiety, fatigue or sleep loss as a result, the survey shows. Yet one in 10 adults checks the news every hour, and fully 20% of Americans report “constantly” monitoring their social media feeds — which often exposes them to the latest news headlines, whether they like it or not.”

I remember when I was living in South Korea and there were skirmishes with North Korea, my family would ask me if everything was OK. But in South Korea, people acted as if nothing happened — they were just living normally whereas, in the US, everyone was panicking because of the news.

Consuming negative headline after negative headline can make you far more worried, anxious, and sad. Also, while occasionally the news is helpful, it often portrays a negative, extreme, and biased view, making it look like there’s more violence, conflict, and strife than in reality.

The most important finding of the post hoc analyses was that increased social media and television use were associated with lower self-esteem over time. Taking into account the upward social comparison, it might be that repeated exposure to idealized images on social media and television decreases self-esteem. However, according to our results, the reinforcing spirals only applies to depressive symptoms and not self-esteem, suggesting cognitive and mood exacerbating effects of social media.