The Villain Within
nothing but negative news pounded into our minds. Every sec- ond of every day our brains are bombarded with the news of wars, scarcity, economic crisis, disasters, terrorist attacks, mur- ders, sicknesses, and suffering. Did you know that in the 1950s Time magazine covers were about 90 percent positive in tone and content? Then, through the years, Time magazine realized that the more negative their stories, the more copies they would sell. In fact, they realized that negative superlatives worked 30 percent better at snaring readers’ attention than positive ones. And not just that, but the average click-through rate on headlines with negative superla- tives is a staggering 63 percent higher than that of their posi- tive counterparts. This emphasis on the negative isn’t just an editorial decision. The negative content reflects the increasing number of anxiety-producing global events, such as the rise of terrorism, ecological disasters, and many other crises and calamities. All this contributes to our perception that things are getting worse. Now is Time magazine the only one who has gone through this transformation and is delivering negative news? Of course not. Time magazine has to make a profit, as does every other news outlet in the world. If they decide to focus only on the positive, they won’t generate the readership and revenue they require. And the media has developed a disaster reflex—whether it’s a devastating hurricane or an urban riot, they provide satura- tion coverage, creating the impression that the end of the world is near. As a cynical television news producer once said, “If it bleeds, it leads.” As a result, the majority of the daily data we digest is completely negative. It’s difficult to focus on positive thoughts and that next level of success when at every turn we are receiving information about a world that seems doomed. The news can affect you in such a negative way that, even if you are someone who has an “I’m going to be the thermostat of life” mentality, you can soon become the thermometer. The negativity is overpowering the positive-thinking part of our brains. According to research done by UCLA, the average
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