26 ms·

Negativity drives online news consumption

617 points by azefiel 4y ago

numbers_guy 4y ago
Maybe it is because happy people do not consume the news? Happy people tend to have full lives and are therefore too busy to waste time ingesting news about events that are not going to personally affect them. Whereas, I can only speak for myself, but when I am down (like right now), I spend lots of time doing nothing but browsing news aggregator websites and leaving comments like this one. And of course, negative news would resonate more with a person who is in a bad mood.
- redleggedfrog 4y ago
  It works the other way, too. You're happier when you don't consume the news. That is also scientifically proven, although I have no linkage to support that claim.
- olliecornelia 4y ago
  Some people are hoping for a catastrophe that will render all their personal problems irrelevant, be it World War III, environmental disasters or societal collapse. Like a snow day for your whole life.
  - redleggedfrog 4y ago
    "Like a snow day for your whole life." Thank you, that gave me a hearty laugh.
  - ctocoder 4y ago
    This is a problem to fix, which society has not itself figured out yet. Hope, being good enough, your time is your time and desire mitigation is a solution. Productize and scale happiness
    - mistermann 4y ago
      What if fixes exist but everyone is only able to laugh at them due to their conditioning?
    - ihateyouall123 4y ago
      What does this empty platitude mean?
  - slickdork 4y ago
    Thank you, that's a great way to describe why I always check the news the moment I wake up.
    - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
      I figure if that were to happen, the first clue would be the Internet being out. So, might as well load something better than the news.
      - pixl97 4y ago
        Always hard to tell if the world is ending or if Amazon East is down.
  - seysetawt 4y ago
    My parents. Never as excited as when they're watching disaster on TV.
  - wafriedemann 4y ago
    Very interesting point. The other type is people who think they'll be on top after a society-breaking external event. It's a very bitter and passive attitude. Something to hold on to for the ones who don't have the power to do things themselves. I guess News just mirror that attitude. In a less dramatic way negative News distract you from your own problems for a while.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Of course everyone loses to an extent in a collapse but power is relative. And short of a meteor collapses are usually partial (e.g. the roman empire fell but the church remained and consolidated power). You can only paint with a broad brush but it's not exactly hard to pick out groups that will be net recipients of relative power and wealth in various collapse scenarios. If the financial system collapses people who own capital in whole (e.g. some tradesman with his van full of tools) and people who own "promises" of things (the contents of your 401k, bank account, etc) lose. If high level government collapses people who are associated with alternate sources of organization and administration (local government, the church) win. If local government collapses people who depended a lot on those services lose and people who already went without win. Remember, money and political capital are convertible to each other to an extent so that complicates things as well. So it's perfectly rational for people to root for the kind of specific tumultuous change that would benefit them.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        In my experience, it's not those that are likely to be better off after a catastrophe who are looking for it. They are already pretty well off, they have a lot to lose in chaos. Those who don't have a lot to lose are more interested in a chaotic phase that rolls the dice and will quickly reshuffle the social order. The rich are moving into gated communities, they're not looking forward to living in a mad max world -- they're trying to keep that world out.
        bilbo0s 4y ago
        In fairness, there's no such thing as a mad max world. At least not one without the rich. A mad max world is predicated on companies like Halliburton continuing to keep the fossil fuel deliveries coming. Which, in turn, is predicated on keeping refineries maintained and running. Keeping pipelines secure. And keeping roads repaired. All of which imply a very large number of wealthy people. (Assuming even state or regional scale energy logistics.) To get mad max, we have to have alternative energy production and storage be cheap enough for broke people to afford. Even then, they'd need to be able to afford enough of that energy that they can spend huge amounts of it riding around looking for other people to steal from rather than spending the energy on farming and heating their homes. Raiding might work for post apocalyptic populations in Florida or South Carolina. I imagine the climate might be conducive to that sort of thing. But in a world with no energy deliveries, spending what little energy you have so frivolously would quickly doom you and your family if you live in Minnesota, Illinois, or Wisconsin for instance.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    While other people project.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    "Oh thank god, society collapsed, now I don't owe that $5k of credit card debt, win win"
    - web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
      “now if you’ll excuse me I need to check my squirrel trap for breakfast, hopefully the dogs didn’t get it to it yet”
  - glomgril 4y ago
    That's kinda how the pandemic felt to a degree. A happier than average time in my personal life, despite (or perhaps due in part to?!) all the carnage and pandemonium throughout the world. Feels wrong to say, but I will look back on my experience of the pandemic fondly.
    - npunt 4y ago
      Agree, the pandemic didn't hit the way I expected and I've heard many with similar experiences. This type of response (generally speaking, not necessarily you) may for some be driven by hypervigilance, as one of the ways it manifests is a level of calm in emergencies when others are freaking out. Rather paradoxical on the surface, but has to do with adaptation to certain stress levels and threat/friend response. The pandemic made a lot of friends into threats, if you were trying to avoid covid. Safety came from a greater level of suspicion and alertness to surroundings; an unhealthy response in everyday life but rather suitable for a pandemic. Another example is soldiers who come back from war can feel really out of place in civilian life, but in wartime can feel like they're 'home'.
      - glomgril 4y ago
        Yeah that is consistent with my experience for sure. Probably true for lots of others too. I'm pretty neurotic about dumb shit on a day-to-day basis, but the few times something actually extremely serious has gone wrong in/around my life, it's rarely felt particularly scary or panic-inducing -- maybe even less so than the usual "oh my god I probably left the stove on and the building will burn to the ground and it'll be all my fault!"
        Karrot_Kream 4y ago
        This is a pretty common behavior for folks with anxiety related disorders, obviously closely tied with neurotic behavior. For me, there's nothing like the clarity of an all-out disaster to focus and sober me up.
  - thrown123098 4y ago
    We had that. It was called Covid. Two years later we are still dealing with the first phase of the completely predictable results rolling lock downs caused. In another 5 we will start dealing with the unpredictable ones. Here's hoping that we're wise enough to not let reddit admits dictate world health policy again.
  - throwaway742 4y ago
    I'm in this comment and I don't like it.
  - flippinburgers 4y ago
    Is is a snow day from their life or is it that their life hasn't or isn't going the way they expected but they perceive everyone else to be living fulfilling lives... and they would like to see that end?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  It is a valid question, but anecdotally, I am a happy camper, who typically does not really worry too much, but events over the past few years forced to cut down on checking news, because the more I understand it, the more depressed I get over state of affairs I have zero control over. This weird level of inability to make any kind of difference puts a damper on things. I set acceptable times for when I review stuff and even then I try hard to curate it as much as possible to avoid mindless scrolling. It is not easy and you get psychological jitters ( and you try to channel it some other ways ) and you can feel your hard trying to reach for that mouse. But overall the results were/are worth it. Sure, we are facing eventual extinction of human race, but one could argue that has been the case for several decades now so I sleep much better.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    "Don't worry about the things you can't change" More specifically the things you don't have control over.
- harles 4y ago
  I suspect this isn’t the case. Even when I’m in a great mood, I find myself drawn more to negative headlines. I wonder if it’s related to our odd loss aversion behavior[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Trolls troll because they enjoy the stimulus that it provides. Perhaps there is some overlap with that and posting negative news? Prison Experiment meets Social Media (which weaponizes and amplifies). https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-just-enjoy-hurting-others-they-also-feel-good-about-themselves-145931 https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-j... (New research shows trolls don’t just enjoy hurting others, they also feel good about themselves)
  - mistermann 4y ago
    > Trolls troll because they enjoy the stimulus that it provides. And normal people love self-serving, simplistic, "just so" stories.
- dageshi 4y ago
  I cut out actively searching for news completely, I'm infinitely happier for it. All reading the news ever did was make me upset about things I couldn't change.
- jckahn 4y ago
  I consider myself a happy person and love to stay on top of the news. It makes the day more interesting.
- now__what 4y ago
  Happy person speaking. I subscribe to the physical edition of several (paid) local news publications, mostly to keep tabs on local events, new businesses opening, and stuff that requires political engagement (votes, borough and city meetings, etc.) It makes me feel more connected to my community, and I never run out of fun stuff to do :) I don't bother with online news; most of it is irrelevant to me. If a national story has some bearing on my life, it'll usually end up in the local Sunday paper anyway.
- ShroudedNight 4y ago
  I can definitely recognise similar patterns in my own behaviour and how they relate to mood. Infamy is very effective at rallying what is essentially an ad-hoc community, and so is viscerally attractive when I feel lonely or have feelings adjacent thereof. But the company I find in misery ends up being especially unproductive and unconstructive and hostile to calls to action that are collaborative, or can't guarantee immediate ROI. And so, the payoff I need to feel better, collaborative edification and mutual restoration of hope, doesn't happen, and so I can find myself having spent hours hopping from outrage to outrage, getting progressively worse until exhaustion demands a rest that (hopefully) provides the respite and reset required to pursue a more productive alternative.
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- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > happy people do not consume the news Or consume different news. Ad-driven news is vastly more crisis-impending than subscription-driven news, which tends to be more contemplative as well as zoom out and explore regions and issues that aren't in spotlight. (I read the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Economist, Information, Monde Diplomatique and Paris Review, in addition to a number of stacks.)
psychoslave 4y ago
Just flip your coordinate system, and voilà, it's all positively existing people roaming the world in wonder.
specproc 4y ago
We've got huge quantities of multilingual news data with social metrics (e.g. newsapi.ai), classification models, research APIs for Twitter. But Nature's running Upworthy and dictionary-based classification? It's almost low-N by today's standards. This is the sort of paper that could have been written a couple of decades ago.
- h2odragon 4y ago
  There was no need to reach for more sophisticated tools; these were sufficient to give them the results they wanted. I suspect you wanted research where people look at the world and discover what it means. This is the other kind, where people decide what they want the world to look like, then paint their data to reflect that.
gwbrooks 4y ago
Former newspaper city editor here. With few exceptions, positive stories -- although readers clamored for them in surveys -- never drove newsrack sales the way negative stories did. That's why we had a whole section for feel-good features but they didn't usually get prime front-page real estate. In the age of infinite content, headlines have become a sort of drama arms race. But the basic dynamic of what works and what doesn't for drawing in readers hasn't changed.
- pmarreck 4y ago
  Do you think this is just how we're wired? What is so extremely disappointing to me is that, across many objective measures, many things seem to be improving, yet the perception most people have of reality is the complete opposite, thanks to this perverse incentive.
  - VLM 4y ago
    Most people don't read online news. Online news is a subculture at this point and they're not interested in happy stories so happy stories are not produced.
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    Not a psychologist but I feel like appreciating things are more of a learned trait but jealousy and wanting are natural.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    > many things seem to be improving, yet the perception most people have of reality is the complete opposite Online news (as well as cable news) in particular has taken to farming any kinds of changes to society as moral decay. Airing or printing only outrage is a business model unto its own. See: Huffpost, Breitbart for examples.
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  - themitigating 4y ago
    Politicians are also pushing the notion that things are getting worse for support and those politicians are supported by news networks who may skew coverage.
drak0n1c 4y ago
I follow the Community Impact paper for my city. It's a Texas firm that has specialized papers for each area of each major city. It's filled with very informative mostly positive community developments -- oriented around new establishments, expansions, road improvements, city parks/rec proposals, and events. https://communityimpact.com/ https://communityimpact.com/ Every state should have a similar paper.
- burlesona 4y ago
  I’ll second that Community Impact is an excellent paper and a real service to the community. Wish it was typical instead of such an outlier.
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gflemingiiii 4y ago
No shit. Negativity drives anything ad supported. Web 2.0 will go down as negativity driven. You can see it on Hacker News as well
davidw 4y ago
Well that's not good news.
bleuchase 4y ago
Engagement is engagement. Ryan Holiday wrote about this years ago. He’s not an academic but has a solid grasp on the practical aspect of how to exploit this tactic.
ouid 4y ago
this is a bad headline. Drives is a causal word, which is not established. Indeed, a much more reasonable hypothesis is that both negative headlines and consumption are caused by high information events, which are more likely to be negative.
- havblue 4y ago
  TFA discusses how randomized controlled trials were used to obtain their conclusions which do actually discuss causation. You're free to disagree with the study but you are incorrect in calling the article out as having a causation fallacy.
  - ouid 4y ago
    they controlled for information content?
gerad 4y ago
In other news: the sky is blue and water is wet.
wallfacer120 4y ago
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1270018080 4y ago
Ever since I started my news diet I feel better overall and less stressed. Sure you can claim being apathetic/ignorant towards global current events makes me a bad person, but I do not care. To me, no human is designed to handle as much information input as we experience today. Maybe I'll become informed again when news becomes more balanced, but I am waiting.
PhysicalNomad 4y ago
I stopped reading news a year ago for this reason, having left social networks for much longer. Of course I still have some exposure through HN, but overall I'm happier and don't miss them one bit.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  One of these days the fountains of poison will have 100% of a nearly deserted market. Great success.
bell-cot 4y ago
Sadly, this is old news - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_it_bleeds,_it_leads https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_it_bleeds,_it_leads - predating "online".
initramfs 4y ago
A questionable headline- does it frame and try to link negativity with news, or choose this proposition because it's more likely to get clicks? If I had unlimited cash and I was the editor, my front pages would be tongue-in-cheek nods to negative stories, like "CRIME ON PAGE 15" so they'd have to flip through a meadow of full page color ads of sakura trees, the textual equivalent of green noise. Archive.org has a pleasant viewing experience if you flip through many of the fully-scanned magazines, simply because there are no digital popups- at least the ads on the pages are inert and unable to cause a virus.
kerblang 4y ago
The paper doesn't seem to introduce any novel understanding of the topic, just reinforce what we already assumed - maybe I'm missing something. I'd be more interested in a study of "persecution" news, the us-vs-them narrative that has become much more common in the last 20-30 years and which I think drives a lot of the so-called polarity of political dialogue. Also it would be interesting to see effects in decentralized publishing, e.g. youtube/tiktok & independent journalism, since those are so much more prevalent and integral to the broader media narrative now.
omoikane 4y ago
The headline of the article is a concept that most of us are familiar with, but what I think is the novel part is how they quantified it. If you are not planning on reading all 8000+ words, scroll to the results section and look at table 2 for all the headline variations and click through rates.
DeathArrow 4y ago
It's in the human nature. People are more worried about what can affect them in a negative way than are they content about good things. Maybe it's the survival instinct that triggers with bad news, maybe people consider the good news to be normal. I try to click less on negative stories and more on positive stories. Negative things can make me angry or sad and I dislike being angry or sad. Also I find many negative news to be tiresome.
- nottathrowaway3 4y ago
  > I try to click less on negative stories and more on positive stories. An alternative approach is to consume news from multiple countries (including your own). It's so interesting to see how all the fnords are different and just how conditioned you were to consume the one kind of media designed for your country.
nntwozz 4y ago
Kinda like what P.T. Barnum once said: “There's no such thing as bad publicity”.
rib3ye 4y ago
What some people might call "negativity", others might call "risks", and I want to have as many risks on my radar as possible. The crime is marketing benign events as risk.
dbtc 4y ago
This headline is itself an example of the phenomenon.
ilamont 4y ago
A tale that predates the "yellow journalism" movement. One of my favorite anecdotes about Ben Franklin (via the Isaacson biography) was his tendency to deliberately gin up stories or controversy in his publications, using fake letters to the editor and other tricks. This was in the mid 1700s. TV news has the same problem. After the Eagles broke up, drummer Don Henley nailed it with one of his first solo hits, Dirty Laundry: I make my livin' off the evenin' news Just give me somethin', somethin' I can use People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry Well, I coulda' been an actor, but I wound up here I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear Come and whisper in my ear Give us dirty laundry
- poo-yie 4y ago
  I came to make same comment about Don Henley's song Dirty Laundry. The song sums it up perfectly. It's also a great song musically.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  There's a podcast called "The Past Times!" where two comedians just read a newspaper from 200 years ago. They're insane.
  - dirtybird04 4y ago
    Thank you for the recommendation! These guys sound hilarious and I am really looking forward to listening to the whole series
BirAdam 4y ago
I thought that essentially everyone knew this and had for a very long time… “if it bleeds it leads”
varelse 4y ago
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terran57 4y ago
Good ole' negativity bias at work here...
medill1919 4y ago
Make news irginizations non profit. Gove them the same tax breaks that churches get. Then they dont have to worry about clicks to pay their staff.
thenerdhead 4y ago
Cynicism breeds extremism.
russellbeattie 4y ago
This is just one form of “information ochlocracy” in all forms of media. Ochlocracy is the evil cousin of democracy - basically mob rule. Because the business model of media (old or new) requires a large audience, the least common denominator inexorably pushes content towards the basest human emotions and targets the least educated (as they are the vast majority of people). This is how we end up with the History channel focusing on Nazis and Ancient Aliens and Bravo transforming from a channel focused on the arts such as Opera, to broadcasting Real Housewives non stop. In terms of social media, it’s the same incentives. Those that post or share the most inflammatory content get more reactions and engagement. Even cat pics produce the same level of emotion, except on the opposite end of the spectrum. What’s not rewarded is intelligent discourse. See also “eternal September”. A nice new trend is the small newsletter subscription model, where those that most appreciate in-depth, detailed thought are able to support it directly. But this model is simply a boutique solution, and it won’t result in another Time Warner.
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Wish people could turn back time, and get back the time spent reading news/politics articles. Such a waste of time. Nothing ever happens. And if WWIII happens, nothing you can do about it reading articles.
- arooni 4y ago
  I read far too much news/politics articles and I'd like to read more books instead. How do I go about doing this? The novelty of news and perhaps the uncertainty of rewards (slot machine syndrome) makes it appealing.
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brwck 4y ago
Does it not drive print and cable news consumption too? CNN and Fox news are as negative as you can get and the masses flock to them.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  CNN and Fox even fight each other on the meta level. It's hilarious.
rr888 4y ago
I agreed with the headline but now I think about it lots of interesting and or funny stuff too. Look at HN as an example.
mfuzzey 4y ago
Regardless of new worthiness it's logical to focus more on negative things. Negatives are problems to be solved, if enough people care maybe they will be solved too. Whereas positives don't need solving (though can still be good to think about to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater when addressing a negative. Of course not all negatives can be solved themselves. If it's "X was killed due to Y" then of course X is dead so nothing more can be done for X but maybe we can prevent issue Y killing someone else Z in the future.
api 4y ago
"If you mistake a bush for a lion, you are fine. If you mistake a lion for a bush, you are dead." Your ancestors clicked on the article that said "lion."
t12hrow 4y ago
Define news. Is it the local gossip section or large social shifts or trends? Is the release of GPT-4 news? Was covid news? Any sufficiently important event will eventually knock on your door, so it's not like you can stick your head on the sand completely. Ultimately, news is indistinguishable from information, and information is valuable if you're able to tell the signal from the noise, extract the meaning, and find the balance between getting the most value and not wasting time. You can use that information to make decisions over your own life: should I invest in X? Should I work in Y? Should I move to Z? For example, amid the tech layoffs and the rise of AI tools to write code, I think one should reconsider starting a career path in software engineering That is, unless you're completely self sufficient and living off the grid, in which case you don't need any of it.
tomkarho 4y ago
Negativity has always driven news and their consumption If it bleeds, it leads
EGreg 4y ago
Just as I have been saying, we need an alternative to the capitalist profit-driven media organizations. Outrage drives “engagement”, for both social networks and for publishers. All of the profit-driven outleys are subject to market pressures. Even NYTimes which won more Pulitzer prizes than anyone admits to A/B testing headlines for clickbait. Let alone FOX News or YouTubers with “X does Y, immediately regregts it” and “Foo DESTROYS {group we hate}” The profit motive and private ownership of the social networks and publications inevitably drives people into echo chambers and creates tribalism. Because the market selects for that over anything else. It’s not an accident that Twitter is so toxic, for instance. Worse than just negativity, the media outlets selectively report on events in order to support their country’s narrative, often due to their government’s pressure. This can lead to wars and misunderstandings between huge populations, leading to violence. This is why I started https://rational.app https://rational.app
- koheripbal 4y ago
  There is a lot of negativity on your site.
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  - EGreg 4y ago
    Can you give some examples? Elaborate? It highlights what’s wrong with the for-profit news industry.
    - koheripbal 4y ago
      https://rational.app/category/rational-app-blog/ https://rational.app/category/rational-app-blog/ Are there more recent blog posts or is this all?
- sergiomattei 4y ago
  Your landing page is a wall of text. Simplify it.
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lawrenceyan 4y ago
Negativity (anger, fear, anxiety, etc...) has a way of getting you to cling onto it in an incredibly insidious way. It's hard because usually you don't notice it until you've already started spreading it to others. Let that shit go immediately, once you become aware. And if at all possible, spend time working to develop mindfulness (a meditation/introspection practice is very helpful).
spandrew 4y ago
I went for a jog at my condo's gym the other day and the news was on. During my 30m session I learned about 3 violent crimes around the city. 2 car collisions. And a bunch of political turmoil etc. I thought to myself: Why do I need to know person-x was one in 3 million to get killed? Why is this compelling? Is there a risk to me? Was such an overtly negative feeling to watch that. Turned it off half way through the run.
neilv 4y ago
About 20 years ago, I would read many newspapers every day. (I care a lot about society, and, therefore, journalism.) I learned a lot about both. At some point, I had to take a break, because awareness of so many problems was overwhelming, and also there were diminishing returns (most problems are ongoing or recurring). Years later, I found myself following local news for the locale where I was living (and where I had some large complaints about that locale). Eventually, I realized that, unlike before, I was subconsciously looking for and drawn to stories that reinforced my dislike for that locale. Reading was like ranting. This seemed very unhealthy, so I stopped. One idea for LLMs would be to give me weekly or monthly updates on the news, or catch me up after some arbitrary break period. Maybe a more flexible NYT Week In Review.
- martincmartin 4y ago
  I read a weekly news magazine (think Time, Newsweek, The Economist) for that reason. No need for AI, actual people can give you a weekly update!
rohankshir 4y ago
correct - the SVB collapse was pretty bad on its own, but it provided the perfect opportunity to jump on the blame train and spin a bunch of negative narratives. News(events) = boring but useful News(events + narratives) = juicy and less useful I wrote about this more extensively here: https://claritynews.substack.com/p/a-lesson-in-how-media-and-perhaps https://claritynews.substack.com/p/a-lesson-in-how-media-and...
hi41 4y ago
What is the evolutionary basis for us being so biased towards negativity?
- grrdotcloud 4y ago
  Animals aren't negative.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  survival. If you miss hearing about a peace negotiation you're going to be pleasantly surprised, if you miss hearing about a conflict breaking out, your house might be a pile of rubble with you in it. The obsession with avoiding 'negativity' these days is childish. It's rational to focus on threats. The cost of missing one is, in the most extreme case, death. The cost of missing something positive is most of the time, nothing.
oblib 4y ago
Back in the late `70s early `80s I lived in Los Angeles and I'd grab some fast food after work and go home and sit down and watch the "News". There was only one channel we could get using an antenna. They had 3 half hour news programs back to back. They started out with local news, then National news, then World news. Basically they scraped up every bit of "Bad News" they could find. Murders, robberies, car wrecks and natural disasters. After a few months of that I noticed I was getting depressed after consuming all that. I'd wake up feeling fine, go to work and get done and still feeling fine. But after that hour and a half I felt like life sucked. So I quit watching it and the depression went with it. Since then I've made a point monitor the news and learned to keep that in perspective with what's going on close to me. BTW, that News station was one of the very 1st to be bought up by "FOX". Since then they pivoted from focusing on tragedy to political outrage, but the effect on ones view of life is obviously very much connected to the "news" they consume, and a great many are attracted to gloom and doom and outrage.
- superfrank 4y ago
  I have an auth who was a producer for a news network in the US back in the 90s. She said she someone came to who one day with a story and before they could even finish their sentence, she went "how many people died?" and saying that out loud made it click how depressing her job was. She quit shortly after and moved to the Scottish countryside and still says it's the best decision she's ever made.
avereveard 4y ago
And it's not just news a lot of other media is producing negative or outright toxic content, and it's super hard to break out because drama and gossip are captivating, because satire can be fun even if disperse in a negative sea and because there is quite some selection bias from our own frustration in selecting the content that relates to us. Let's not forget we went trough four "once in a lifetime disaster" by now. Or more depending how you count. Today I make a conscious effort to check a channel content before consuming any drama in it. If the channel is 100% drama I pass, regardless of how captivating the original link was,to try and break out of the algorithm.
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kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
It's always obvious in the Google news aggregation where the top article group is saying one thing and the Faux News headline is spinning the completely opposite direction no matter how tenuous the position is so long as it's owning the libs.
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  Maybe Google News is just great at serving you articles that aligns with your viewpoint? If people don't find biased articles at least weekly in their favorite newspaper, then I'd argue that they aren't critical enough.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    I never click on them. Nothing in their profiling would make me a target for that company's propaganda. Ten years ago FN never showed up their news aggregation. Then there were complaints about bias so their algorithm was tweaked to be more "fair and balanced".
bpm140 4y ago
About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on Memeorandum if I'm out and about, every week or so. I have found that I no longer have any interest at all in the contents of the stories. Most seem so petty. I don't honestly give a f*ck if someone on either side of the aisle is caught doing something immoral, because there has been zero consequences during my 50 years of life. The vast majority of power players (politicians, businesspeople and celebrities) get off scott free, so I've just opted out of caring. So much happier as a result.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  One of the most common bit of wisdom I've heard from older folks is to ignore the news. Don't read the newspaper, don't watch TV news, don't listen to radio news, etc.; they all say nothing in them is worth our time. It's among the most useful piece of advice I've ever had.
  - siva7 4y ago
    Very true but does HN count? Would you be happier without your daily influx of GPT news and tech layoffs?
    - RockRobotRock 4y ago
      HN definitely counts
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      Yup. I ignore 99% of the threads that come by here, and I wish I could do that without bothering to read the clickbaity (and generally sensationally false) headlines.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
0xGod 4y ago
This is bad. It is a negative feedback loop that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of negativity. We see it happening already with mass media being responsible for stoking tensions between superpowers in order to “be first” in reporting something (even if they have to redact it later), or in order to obtain click revenue. We need to stop the tabloidification of the 24/7 negative news machines everyone is holding in their hands right now.
talkingtab 4y ago
Two stories: Biden & Trump Get Into Food Fight at Restaurant? More and More Americans Deal With Evictions. Question: Which of these two stories will get more clicks for an advertiser? Click-bait pays the bills for our news. NYT is an obvious example. Their stories? How much home can a million buy in Portland. Which $600,000 apartment would you choose in Brooklyn. Negativity is certainly a factor in click-bait but lets pin the tail on the donkey: targeted advertising as a business model.
beefman 4y ago
This is itself a negative story.
TheCaptain4815 4y ago
I only read the Wall Street journal which I feel gives fairly balanced and non click bait content. If it’s not big enough to warrant being on the WSJ, do I even wanna read it?
suddenclarity 4y ago
The study isn't about news but rather clickbait shitposting on Upworthy. I don't refute the claim, partly because positive news are rarely extraordinary, but the paper isn't about news. It does however show that an incorrect headline can go a long way when trying to get attention on social media as long as the claim aligns with the voters.
HybridCurve 4y ago
Similarly related: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-u-s-media-so-negative/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-u-s-media-so-negativ... Freakonomics had a decent episode which explained some of these mechanisms.
zabzonk 4y ago
wow, strange but revealing comments here on the ideas of what constitutes news in the usa - i read the guardian (uk) every day, and i simply don't recognise many of these issues.
- zamadatix 4y ago
  Checking out The Guardian's current UK page headlines: public sector strikes, controversy around media involved in a Rwanda visit, putin war crimes arrest warrant, actor dies, actor has blood cancer, labour party racism claims, SNP head of communications resigns due to failures, female footballers criticise another article, london bridge terrorist attack memorial, supermarkets fined after death of employee, something about the conservatives party upset someone wasn't prosecuted. Followed by a row for the Ukraine invasion followed by a spotlight section containing: "the poison umbrella" on cold war killings, some babble about hugh grant and complaining about the Oscars, a somewhat not negative story about childcare funding? ~20 completely negative and/or garbage babbling stories on the page before one somewhat decent one sounds exactly the same to me.
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swalling 4y ago
This is approaching the status of truism to anyone who has worked in journalism. It’s not just the macabre dopamine rush of car crashes and natural disasters. Critiques involving total and complete destruction of the restaurant/play/movie/album — like this classic takedown of Guy Fieri’s monstrosity of a Times Square restaurant https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant... —always draw the most eyeballs.
JoeOfTexas 4y ago
I like to see both points of views between Democrats and Republicans. I made a little website with a side-by-side of the top posts for each party from reddit. https://www.worstofboth.com/ https://www.worstofboth.com/
sacnoradhq 4y ago
No shite! :) Actually, it's much more specific than that: outrage. Novelty makes it more viral. Propinquity also increases the response (similarity between reader and subject). In terms of manufacturing consent/sentiment, people who watch more local news tend to drift their views of police and authorities to more favorably. And everyone should know what the effect is of Fox News on its viewers.
exodust 4y ago
I think it's because people care about fixing broken things in the world. There's no mystery here. We want to know what's broken in order to discuss and debate solutions. If there's perception of injustice or bad practice in the community, then yes people will click the negativity. Apart from that there's the "popcorn" consumption, where negative things are more entertaining.
agniikaii 4y ago
Negativity tends to last longer in comparison with positivity. People remember and are attracted to the bad because the good is secondary
thomastjeffery 4y ago
I think the situation is a bit more complex than this; or at least that it can be. The thing driving consumption is engagement. So what can news provide that drives engagement? Incomplete narrative. Conflict is probably the most familiar place to find an incomplete narrative. The easiest way to present conflict is from a negative perspective. A problem that is missing a solution is very easy to engage with. Mystery is another. What really happened? What will happen next? Speculate! These are broadly considered "lazy journalism", and for good reason. Controversial narratives are trivial to construct, even when the controversy itself is fake. Mystery is either an incomplete story or speculative fiction. --- The best works of journalism present a complete story, but that doesn't leave much to engage with. It might be interesting. It might be complicated. It might be important. Is that enough? Sometimes. Stories that good don't get written every day. If they did, they would become relatively mundane. The news does get published every day. What can we do except to fill the days in between with conflict and mystery? What kinds of engagement are actually positive? Can they compete? --- I visit hacker news because it is thriving with examples of positive engagement. New tools, educational exposition, open questions, historical exploration, etc. Many of the posts here aren't news per se, but they are better than vain controversy. I think that news organizations should diversify their content and presentation formats. Find more alternatives to "new" than opinion and speculation. Present opportunities for objectivity instead of neatly wrapped conclusions.
anonymous344 4y ago
News are not news anymore. They are fake headlines just fishing for one more click. Real News should be government driven. News and not click headlines. And it is in finland and GB, atleast one alternative among the market ones. Don't know about the GB one but in finland the YLE has crazy overgrown budget that just grows and grows, too many people working with too much time and the result is that it's not anymore "government basic information agency for every citizen" but a hundreds of ppl with no real work, but just to make gay, lesbian and lqbqt content on the headlines and everywhere. The amount of unbiblical sickness of sex-related vomiting is just so much that it must be the end of times..
EricE 4y ago
Dirty Laundry Don Henley [Verse 1] I make my livin' off the evenin' news Just give me somethin', somethin' I can use People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry [Verse 2] Well, I coulda' been an actor, but I wound up here I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear Come and whisper in my ear Give us dirty laundry [Chorus] Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em all around [Verse 3] We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at five She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye It's interesting when people die Give us dirty laundry [Verse 4] Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry [Verse 5] You don't really need to find out what's goin' on You don't really wanna know just how far it's gone Just leave well enough alone Eat your dirty laundry [Chorus] Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're stiff Kick 'em all around [Post-Chorus] (Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're stiff Kick 'em all around) [Verse 6] Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie We love to cut you down to size We love dirty laundry [Verse 7] We can do "The Innuendo", we can dance and sing When it's said and done, we haven't told you a thing We all know that crap is king Give us dirty laundry! [Outro] (Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down When they're up, when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down)

617 points by azefiel 4y ago

Maybe it is because happy people do not consume the news? Happy people tend to have full lives and are therefore too busy to waste time ingesting news about events that are not going to personally affect them. Whereas, I can only speak for myself, but when I am down (like right now), I spend lots of time doing nothing but browsing news aggregator websites and leaving comments like this one. And of course, negative news would resonate more with a person who is in a bad mood.

redleggedfrog 4y ago
It works the other way, too. You're happier when you don't consume the news. That is also scientifically proven, although I have no linkage to support that claim.
olliecornelia 4y ago
Some people are hoping for a catastrophe that will render all their personal problems irrelevant, be it World War III, environmental disasters or societal collapse. Like a snow day for your whole life.
- redleggedfrog 4y ago
  "Like a snow day for your whole life." Thank you, that gave me a hearty laugh.
- ctocoder 4y ago
  This is a problem to fix, which society has not itself figured out yet. Hope, being good enough, your time is your time and desire mitigation is a solution. Productize and scale happiness
  - mistermann 4y ago
    What if fixes exist but everyone is only able to laugh at them due to their conditioning?
  - ihateyouall123 4y ago
    What does this empty platitude mean?
- slickdork 4y ago
  Thank you, that's a great way to describe why I always check the news the moment I wake up.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    I figure if that were to happen, the first clue would be the Internet being out. So, might as well load something better than the news.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Always hard to tell if the world is ending or if Amazon East is down.
- seysetawt 4y ago
  My parents. Never as excited as when they're watching disaster on TV.
- wafriedemann 4y ago
  Very interesting point. The other type is people who think they'll be on top after a society-breaking external event. It's a very bitter and passive attitude. Something to hold on to for the ones who don't have the power to do things themselves. I guess News just mirror that attitude. In a less dramatic way negative News distract you from your own problems for a while.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Of course everyone loses to an extent in a collapse but power is relative. And short of a meteor collapses are usually partial (e.g. the roman empire fell but the church remained and consolidated power). You can only paint with a broad brush but it's not exactly hard to pick out groups that will be net recipients of relative power and wealth in various collapse scenarios. If the financial system collapses people who own capital in whole (e.g. some tradesman with his van full of tools) and people who own "promises" of things (the contents of your 401k, bank account, etc) lose. If high level government collapses people who are associated with alternate sources of organization and administration (local government, the church) win. If local government collapses people who depended a lot on those services lose and people who already went without win. Remember, money and political capital are convertible to each other to an extent so that complicates things as well. So it's perfectly rational for people to root for the kind of specific tumultuous change that would benefit them.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      In my experience, it's not those that are likely to be better off after a catastrophe who are looking for it. They are already pretty well off, they have a lot to lose in chaos. Those who don't have a lot to lose are more interested in a chaotic phase that rolls the dice and will quickly reshuffle the social order. The rich are moving into gated communities, they're not looking forward to living in a mad max world -- they're trying to keep that world out.
      - bilbo0s 4y ago
        In fairness, there's no such thing as a mad max world. At least not one without the rich. A mad max world is predicated on companies like Halliburton continuing to keep the fossil fuel deliveries coming. Which, in turn, is predicated on keeping refineries maintained and running. Keeping pipelines secure. And keeping roads repaired. All of which imply a very large number of wealthy people. (Assuming even state or regional scale energy logistics.) To get mad max, we have to have alternative energy production and storage be cheap enough for broke people to afford. Even then, they'd need to be able to afford enough of that energy that they can spend huge amounts of it riding around looking for other people to steal from rather than spending the energy on farming and heating their homes. Raiding might work for post apocalyptic populations in Florida or South Carolina. I imagine the climate might be conducive to that sort of thing. But in a world with no energy deliveries, spending what little energy you have so frivolously would quickly doom you and your family if you live in Minnesota, Illinois, or Wisconsin for instance.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  While other people project.
- themitigating 4y ago
  "Oh thank god, society collapsed, now I don't owe that $5k of credit card debt, win win"
  - web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
    “now if you’ll excuse me I need to check my squirrel trap for breakfast, hopefully the dogs didn’t get it to it yet”
- glomgril 4y ago
  That's kinda how the pandemic felt to a degree. A happier than average time in my personal life, despite (or perhaps due in part to?!) all the carnage and pandemonium throughout the world. Feels wrong to say, but I will look back on my experience of the pandemic fondly.
  - npunt 4y ago
    Agree, the pandemic didn't hit the way I expected and I've heard many with similar experiences. This type of response (generally speaking, not necessarily you) may for some be driven by hypervigilance, as one of the ways it manifests is a level of calm in emergencies when others are freaking out. Rather paradoxical on the surface, but has to do with adaptation to certain stress levels and threat/friend response. The pandemic made a lot of friends into threats, if you were trying to avoid covid. Safety came from a greater level of suspicion and alertness to surroundings; an unhealthy response in everyday life but rather suitable for a pandemic. Another example is soldiers who come back from war can feel really out of place in civilian life, but in wartime can feel like they're 'home'.
    - glomgril 4y ago
      Yeah that is consistent with my experience for sure. Probably true for lots of others too. I'm pretty neurotic about dumb shit on a day-to-day basis, but the few times something actually extremely serious has gone wrong in/around my life, it's rarely felt particularly scary or panic-inducing -- maybe even less so than the usual "oh my god I probably left the stove on and the building will burn to the ground and it'll be all my fault!"
      - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
        This is a pretty common behavior for folks with anxiety related disorders, obviously closely tied with neurotic behavior. For me, there's nothing like the clarity of an all-out disaster to focus and sober me up.
- thrown123098 4y ago
  We had that. It was called Covid. Two years later we are still dealing with the first phase of the completely predictable results rolling lock downs caused. In another 5 we will start dealing with the unpredictable ones. Here's hoping that we're wise enough to not let reddit admits dictate world health policy again.
- throwaway742 4y ago
  I'm in this comment and I don't like it.
- flippinburgers 4y ago
  Is is a snow day from their life or is it that their life hasn't or isn't going the way they expected but they perceive everyone else to be living fulfilling lives... and they would like to see that end?
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
It is a valid question, but anecdotally, I am a happy camper, who typically does not really worry too much, but events over the past few years forced to cut down on checking news, because the more I understand it, the more depressed I get over state of affairs I have zero control over. This weird level of inability to make any kind of difference puts a damper on things. I set acceptable times for when I review stuff and even then I try hard to curate it as much as possible to avoid mindless scrolling. It is not easy and you get psychological jitters ( and you try to channel it some other ways ) and you can feel your hard trying to reach for that mouse. But overall the results were/are worth it. Sure, we are facing eventual extinction of human race, but one could argue that has been the case for several decades now so I sleep much better.
- themitigating 4y ago
  "Don't worry about the things you can't change" More specifically the things you don't have control over.
harles 4y ago
I suspect this isn’t the case. Even when I’m in a great mood, I find myself drawn more to negative headlines. I wonder if it’s related to our odd loss aversion behavior[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Trolls troll because they enjoy the stimulus that it provides. Perhaps there is some overlap with that and posting negative news? Prison Experiment meets Social Media (which weaponizes and amplifies). https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-just-enjoy-hurting-others-they-also-feel-good-about-themselves-145931 https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-j... (New research shows trolls don’t just enjoy hurting others, they also feel good about themselves)
- mistermann 4y ago
  > Trolls troll because they enjoy the stimulus that it provides. And normal people love self-serving, simplistic, "just so" stories.
dageshi 4y ago
I cut out actively searching for news completely, I'm infinitely happier for it. All reading the news ever did was make me upset about things I couldn't change.
jckahn 4y ago
I consider myself a happy person and love to stay on top of the news. It makes the day more interesting.
now__what 4y ago
Happy person speaking. I subscribe to the physical edition of several (paid) local news publications, mostly to keep tabs on local events, new businesses opening, and stuff that requires political engagement (votes, borough and city meetings, etc.) It makes me feel more connected to my community, and I never run out of fun stuff to do :) I don't bother with online news; most of it is irrelevant to me. If a national story has some bearing on my life, it'll usually end up in the local Sunday paper anyway.
ShroudedNight 4y ago
I can definitely recognise similar patterns in my own behaviour and how they relate to mood. Infamy is very effective at rallying what is essentially an ad-hoc community, and so is viscerally attractive when I feel lonely or have feelings adjacent thereof. But the company I find in misery ends up being especially unproductive and unconstructive and hostile to calls to action that are collaborative, or can't guarantee immediate ROI. And so, the payoff I need to feel better, collaborative edification and mutual restoration of hope, doesn't happen, and so I can find myself having spent hours hopping from outrage to outrage, getting progressively worse until exhaustion demands a rest that (hopefully) provides the respite and reset required to pursue a more productive alternative.
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JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> happy people do not consume the news Or consume different news. Ad-driven news is vastly more crisis-impending than subscription-driven news, which tends to be more contemplative as well as zoom out and explore regions and issues that aren't in spotlight. (I read the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Economist, Information, Monde Diplomatique and Paris Review, in addition to a number of stacks.)

psychoslave 4y ago

Just flip your coordinate system, and voilà, it's all positively existing people roaming the world in wonder.

specproc 4y ago

We've got huge quantities of multilingual news data with social metrics (e.g. newsapi.ai), classification models, research APIs for Twitter. But Nature's running Upworthy and dictionary-based classification? It's almost low-N by today's standards. This is the sort of paper that could have been written a couple of decades ago.

h2odragon 4y ago
There was no need to reach for more sophisticated tools; these were sufficient to give them the results they wanted. I suspect you wanted research where people look at the world and discover what it means. This is the other kind, where people decide what they want the world to look like, then paint their data to reflect that.

gwbrooks 4y ago

Former newspaper city editor here. With few exceptions, positive stories -- although readers clamored for them in surveys -- never drove newsrack sales the way negative stories did. That's why we had a whole section for feel-good features but they didn't usually get prime front-page real estate. In the age of infinite content, headlines have become a sort of drama arms race. But the basic dynamic of what works and what doesn't for drawing in readers hasn't changed.

pmarreck 4y ago
Do you think this is just how we're wired? What is so extremely disappointing to me is that, across many objective measures, many things seem to be improving, yet the perception most people have of reality is the complete opposite, thanks to this perverse incentive.
- VLM 4y ago
  Most people don't read online news. Online news is a subculture at this point and they're not interested in happy stories so happy stories are not produced.
- Aperocky 4y ago
  Not a psychologist but I feel like appreciating things are more of a learned trait but jealousy and wanting are natural.
- RajT88 4y ago
  > many things seem to be improving, yet the perception most people have of reality is the complete opposite Online news (as well as cable news) in particular has taken to farming any kinds of changes to society as moral decay. Airing or printing only outrage is a business model unto its own. See: Huffpost, Breitbart for examples.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- themitigating 4y ago
  Politicians are also pushing the notion that things are getting worse for support and those politicians are supported by news networks who may skew coverage.

drak0n1c 4y ago

I follow the Community Impact paper for my city. It's a Texas firm that has specialized papers for each area of each major city. It's filled with very informative mostly positive community developments -- oriented around new establishments, expansions, road improvements, city parks/rec proposals, and events. https://communityimpact.com/ https://communityimpact.com/ Every state should have a similar paper.

burlesona 4y ago
I’ll second that Community Impact is an excellent paper and a real service to the community. Wish it was typical instead of such an outlier.

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gflemingiiii 4y ago

No shit. Negativity drives anything ad supported. Web 2.0 will go down as negativity driven. You can see it on Hacker News as well

davidw 4y ago

Well that's not good news.

bleuchase 4y ago

Engagement is engagement. Ryan Holiday wrote about this years ago. He’s not an academic but has a solid grasp on the practical aspect of how to exploit this tactic.

ouid 4y ago

this is a bad headline. Drives is a causal word, which is not established. Indeed, a much more reasonable hypothesis is that both negative headlines and consumption are caused by high information events, which are more likely to be negative.

havblue 4y ago
TFA discusses how randomized controlled trials were used to obtain their conclusions which do actually discuss causation. You're free to disagree with the study but you are incorrect in calling the article out as having a causation fallacy.
- ouid 4y ago
  they controlled for information content?

gerad 4y ago

In other news: the sky is blue and water is wet.

wallfacer120 4y ago

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1270018080 4y ago

Ever since I started my news diet I feel better overall and less stressed. Sure you can claim being apathetic/ignorant towards global current events makes me a bad person, but I do not care. To me, no human is designed to handle as much information input as we experience today. Maybe I'll become informed again when news becomes more balanced, but I am waiting.

PhysicalNomad 4y ago

I stopped reading news a year ago for this reason, having left social networks for much longer. Of course I still have some exposure through HN, but overall I'm happier and don't miss them one bit.

B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
One of these days the fountains of poison will have 100% of a nearly deserted market. Great success.

bell-cot 4y ago

Sadly, this is old news - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_it_bleeds,_it_leads https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_it_bleeds,_it_leads - predating "online".

initramfs 4y ago

A questionable headline- does it frame and try to link negativity with news, or choose this proposition because it's more likely to get clicks? If I had unlimited cash and I was the editor, my front pages would be tongue-in-cheek nods to negative stories, like "CRIME ON PAGE 15" so they'd have to flip through a meadow of full page color ads of sakura trees, the textual equivalent of green noise. Archive.org has a pleasant viewing experience if you flip through many of the fully-scanned magazines, simply because there are no digital popups- at least the ads on the pages are inert and unable to cause a virus.

kerblang 4y ago

The paper doesn't seem to introduce any novel understanding of the topic, just reinforce what we already assumed - maybe I'm missing something. I'd be more interested in a study of "persecution" news, the us-vs-them narrative that has become much more common in the last 20-30 years and which I think drives a lot of the so-called polarity of political dialogue. Also it would be interesting to see effects in decentralized publishing, e.g. youtube/tiktok & independent journalism, since those are so much more prevalent and integral to the broader media narrative now.

omoikane 4y ago

The headline of the article is a concept that most of us are familiar with, but what I think is the novel part is how they quantified it. If you are not planning on reading all 8000+ words, scroll to the results section and look at table 2 for all the headline variations and click through rates.

DeathArrow 4y ago

It's in the human nature. People are more worried about what can affect them in a negative way than are they content about good things. Maybe it's the survival instinct that triggers with bad news, maybe people consider the good news to be normal. I try to click less on negative stories and more on positive stories. Negative things can make me angry or sad and I dislike being angry or sad. Also I find many negative news to be tiresome.

nottathrowaway3 4y ago
> I try to click less on negative stories and more on positive stories. An alternative approach is to consume news from multiple countries (including your own). It's so interesting to see how all the fnords are different and just how conditioned you were to consume the one kind of media designed for your country.

nntwozz 4y ago

Kinda like what P.T. Barnum once said: “There's no such thing as bad publicity”.

rib3ye 4y ago

What some people might call "negativity", others might call "risks", and I want to have as many risks on my radar as possible. The crime is marketing benign events as risk.

dbtc 4y ago

This headline is itself an example of the phenomenon.

ilamont 4y ago

A tale that predates the "yellow journalism" movement. One of my favorite anecdotes about Ben Franklin (via the Isaacson biography) was his tendency to deliberately gin up stories or controversy in his publications, using fake letters to the editor and other tricks. This was in the mid 1700s. TV news has the same problem. After the Eagles broke up, drummer Don Henley nailed it with one of his first solo hits, Dirty Laundry: I make my livin' off the evenin' news Just give me somethin', somethin' I can use People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry Well, I coulda' been an actor, but I wound up here I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear Come and whisper in my ear Give us dirty laundry

poo-yie 4y ago
I came to make same comment about Don Henley's song Dirty Laundry. The song sums it up perfectly. It's also a great song musically.
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
There's a podcast called "The Past Times!" where two comedians just read a newspaper from 200 years ago. They're insane.
- dirtybird04 4y ago
  Thank you for the recommendation! These guys sound hilarious and I am really looking forward to listening to the whole series

BirAdam 4y ago

I thought that essentially everyone knew this and had for a very long time… “if it bleeds it leads”

varelse 4y ago

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terran57 4y ago

Good ole' negativity bias at work here...

medill1919 4y ago

Make news irginizations non profit. Gove them the same tax breaks that churches get. Then they dont have to worry about clicks to pay their staff.

thenerdhead 4y ago

Cynicism breeds extremism.

russellbeattie 4y ago

This is just one form of “information ochlocracy” in all forms of media. Ochlocracy is the evil cousin of democracy - basically mob rule. Because the business model of media (old or new) requires a large audience, the least common denominator inexorably pushes content towards the basest human emotions and targets the least educated (as they are the vast majority of people). This is how we end up with the History channel focusing on Nazis and Ancient Aliens and Bravo transforming from a channel focused on the arts such as Opera, to broadcasting Real Housewives non stop. In terms of social media, it’s the same incentives. Those that post or share the most inflammatory content get more reactions and engagement. Even cat pics produce the same level of emotion, except on the opposite end of the spectrum. What’s not rewarded is intelligent discourse. See also “eternal September”. A nice new trend is the small newsletter subscription model, where those that most appreciate in-depth, detailed thought are able to support it directly. But this model is simply a boutique solution, and it won’t result in another Time Warner.

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Wish people could turn back time, and get back the time spent reading news/politics articles. Such a waste of time. Nothing ever happens. And if WWIII happens, nothing you can do about it reading articles.

arooni 4y ago
I read far too much news/politics articles and I'd like to read more books instead. How do I go about doing this? The novelty of news and perhaps the uncertainty of rewards (slot machine syndrome) makes it appealing.
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brwck 4y ago

Does it not drive print and cable news consumption too? CNN and Fox news are as negative as you can get and the masses flock to them.

hot_gril 4y ago
CNN and Fox even fight each other on the meta level. It's hilarious.

rr888 4y ago

I agreed with the headline but now I think about it lots of interesting and or funny stuff too. Look at HN as an example.

mfuzzey 4y ago

Regardless of new worthiness it's logical to focus more on negative things. Negatives are problems to be solved, if enough people care maybe they will be solved too. Whereas positives don't need solving (though can still be good to think about to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater when addressing a negative. Of course not all negatives can be solved themselves. If it's "X was killed due to Y" then of course X is dead so nothing more can be done for X but maybe we can prevent issue Y killing someone else Z in the future.

api 4y ago

"If you mistake a bush for a lion, you are fine. If you mistake a lion for a bush, you are dead." Your ancestors clicked on the article that said "lion."

t12hrow 4y ago

Define news. Is it the local gossip section or large social shifts or trends? Is the release of GPT-4 news? Was covid news? Any sufficiently important event will eventually knock on your door, so it's not like you can stick your head on the sand completely. Ultimately, news is indistinguishable from information, and information is valuable if you're able to tell the signal from the noise, extract the meaning, and find the balance between getting the most value and not wasting time. You can use that information to make decisions over your own life: should I invest in X? Should I work in Y? Should I move to Z? For example, amid the tech layoffs and the rise of AI tools to write code, I think one should reconsider starting a career path in software engineering That is, unless you're completely self sufficient and living off the grid, in which case you don't need any of it.

tomkarho 4y ago

Negativity has always driven news and their consumption If it bleeds, it leads

EGreg 4y ago

Just as I have been saying, we need an alternative to the capitalist profit-driven media organizations. Outrage drives “engagement”, for both social networks and for publishers. All of the profit-driven outleys are subject to market pressures. Even NYTimes which won more Pulitzer prizes than anyone admits to A/B testing headlines for clickbait. Let alone FOX News or YouTubers with “X does Y, immediately regregts it” and “Foo DESTROYS {group we hate}” The profit motive and private ownership of the social networks and publications inevitably drives people into echo chambers and creates tribalism. Because the market selects for that over anything else. It’s not an accident that Twitter is so toxic, for instance. Worse than just negativity, the media outlets selectively report on events in order to support their country’s narrative, often due to their government’s pressure. This can lead to wars and misunderstandings between huge populations, leading to violence. This is why I started https://rational.app https://rational.app

koheripbal 4y ago
There is a lot of negativity on your site.
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- EGreg 4y ago
  Can you give some examples? Elaborate? It highlights what’s wrong with the for-profit news industry.
  - koheripbal 4y ago
    https://rational.app/category/rational-app-blog/ https://rational.app/category/rational-app-blog/ Are there more recent blog posts or is this all?
sergiomattei 4y ago
Your landing page is a wall of text. Simplify it.
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lawrenceyan 4y ago

Negativity (anger, fear, anxiety, etc...) has a way of getting you to cling onto it in an incredibly insidious way. It's hard because usually you don't notice it until you've already started spreading it to others. Let that shit go immediately, once you become aware. And if at all possible, spend time working to develop mindfulness (a meditation/introspection practice is very helpful).

spandrew 4y ago

I went for a jog at my condo's gym the other day and the news was on. During my 30m session I learned about 3 violent crimes around the city. 2 car collisions. And a bunch of political turmoil etc. I thought to myself: Why do I need to know person-x was one in 3 million to get killed? Why is this compelling? Is there a risk to me? Was such an overtly negative feeling to watch that. Turned it off half way through the run.

neilv 4y ago

About 20 years ago, I would read many newspapers every day. (I care a lot about society, and, therefore, journalism.) I learned a lot about both. At some point, I had to take a break, because awareness of so many problems was overwhelming, and also there were diminishing returns (most problems are ongoing or recurring). Years later, I found myself following local news for the locale where I was living (and where I had some large complaints about that locale). Eventually, I realized that, unlike before, I was subconsciously looking for and drawn to stories that reinforced my dislike for that locale. Reading was like ranting. This seemed very unhealthy, so I stopped. One idea for LLMs would be to give me weekly or monthly updates on the news, or catch me up after some arbitrary break period. Maybe a more flexible NYT Week In Review.

martincmartin 4y ago
I read a weekly news magazine (think Time, Newsweek, The Economist) for that reason. No need for AI, actual people can give you a weekly update!

rohankshir 4y ago

correct - the SVB collapse was pretty bad on its own, but it provided the perfect opportunity to jump on the blame train and spin a bunch of negative narratives. News(events) = boring but useful News(events + narratives) = juicy and less useful I wrote about this more extensively here: https://claritynews.substack.com/p/a-lesson-in-how-media-and-perhaps https://claritynews.substack.com/p/a-lesson-in-how-media-and...

hi41 4y ago

What is the evolutionary basis for us being so biased towards negativity?

grrdotcloud 4y ago
Animals aren't negative.
Barrin92 4y ago
survival. If you miss hearing about a peace negotiation you're going to be pleasantly surprised, if you miss hearing about a conflict breaking out, your house might be a pile of rubble with you in it. The obsession with avoiding 'negativity' these days is childish. It's rational to focus on threats. The cost of missing one is, in the most extreme case, death. The cost of missing something positive is most of the time, nothing.

oblib 4y ago

Back in the late `70s early `80s I lived in Los Angeles and I'd grab some fast food after work and go home and sit down and watch the "News". There was only one channel we could get using an antenna. They had 3 half hour news programs back to back. They started out with local news, then National news, then World news. Basically they scraped up every bit of "Bad News" they could find. Murders, robberies, car wrecks and natural disasters. After a few months of that I noticed I was getting depressed after consuming all that. I'd wake up feeling fine, go to work and get done and still feeling fine. But after that hour and a half I felt like life sucked. So I quit watching it and the depression went with it. Since then I've made a point monitor the news and learned to keep that in perspective with what's going on close to me. BTW, that News station was one of the very 1st to be bought up by "FOX". Since then they pivoted from focusing on tragedy to political outrage, but the effect on ones view of life is obviously very much connected to the "news" they consume, and a great many are attracted to gloom and doom and outrage.

superfrank 4y ago
I have an auth who was a producer for a news network in the US back in the 90s. She said she someone came to who one day with a story and before they could even finish their sentence, she went "how many people died?" and saying that out loud made it click how depressing her job was. She quit shortly after and moved to the Scottish countryside and still says it's the best decision she's ever made.

avereveard 4y ago

And it's not just news a lot of other media is producing negative or outright toxic content, and it's super hard to break out because drama and gossip are captivating, because satire can be fun even if disperse in a negative sea and because there is quite some selection bias from our own frustration in selecting the content that relates to us. Let's not forget we went trough four "once in a lifetime disaster" by now. Or more depending how you count. Today I make a conscious effort to check a channel content before consuming any drama in it. If the channel is 100% drama I pass, regardless of how captivating the original link was,to try and break out of the algorithm.

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kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

It's always obvious in the Google news aggregation where the top article group is saying one thing and the Faux News headline is spinning the completely opposite direction no matter how tenuous the position is so long as it's owning the libs.

suddenclarity 4y ago
Maybe Google News is just great at serving you articles that aligns with your viewpoint? If people don't find biased articles at least weekly in their favorite newspaper, then I'd argue that they aren't critical enough.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  I never click on them. Nothing in their profiling would make me a target for that company's propaganda. Ten years ago FN never showed up their news aggregation. Then there were complaints about bias so their algorithm was tweaked to be more "fair and balanced".

bpm140 4y ago

About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on Memeorandum if I'm out and about, every week or so. I have found that I no longer have any interest at all in the contents of the stories. Most seem so petty. I don't honestly give a f*ck if someone on either side of the aisle is caught doing something immoral, because there has been zero consequences during my 50 years of life. The vast majority of power players (politicians, businesspeople and celebrities) get off scott free, so I've just opted out of caring. So much happier as a result.

Dalewyn 4y ago
One of the most common bit of wisdom I've heard from older folks is to ignore the news. Don't read the newspaper, don't watch TV news, don't listen to radio news, etc.; they all say nothing in them is worth our time. It's among the most useful piece of advice I've ever had.
- siva7 4y ago
  Very true but does HN count? Would you be happier without your daily influx of GPT news and tech layoffs?
  - RockRobotRock 4y ago
    HN definitely counts
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Yup. I ignore 99% of the threads that come by here, and I wish I could do that without bothering to read the clickbaity (and generally sensationally false) headlines.
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0xGod 4y ago

This is bad. It is a negative feedback loop that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of negativity. We see it happening already with mass media being responsible for stoking tensions between superpowers in order to “be first” in reporting something (even if they have to redact it later), or in order to obtain click revenue. We need to stop the tabloidification of the 24/7 negative news machines everyone is holding in their hands right now.

talkingtab 4y ago

Two stories: Biden & Trump Get Into Food Fight at Restaurant? More and More Americans Deal With Evictions. Question: Which of these two stories will get more clicks for an advertiser? Click-bait pays the bills for our news. NYT is an obvious example. Their stories? How much home can a million buy in Portland. Which $600,000 apartment would you choose in Brooklyn. Negativity is certainly a factor in click-bait but lets pin the tail on the donkey: targeted advertising as a business model.

beefman 4y ago

This is itself a negative story.

TheCaptain4815 4y ago

I only read the Wall Street journal which I feel gives fairly balanced and non click bait content. If it’s not big enough to warrant being on the WSJ, do I even wanna read it?

suddenclarity 4y ago

The study isn't about news but rather clickbait shitposting on Upworthy. I don't refute the claim, partly because positive news are rarely extraordinary, but the paper isn't about news. It does however show that an incorrect headline can go a long way when trying to get attention on social media as long as the claim aligns with the voters.

HybridCurve 4y ago

Similarly related: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-u-s-media-so-negative/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-u-s-media-so-negativ... Freakonomics had a decent episode which explained some of these mechanisms.

zabzonk 4y ago

wow, strange but revealing comments here on the ideas of what constitutes news in the usa - i read the guardian (uk) every day, and i simply don't recognise many of these issues.

zamadatix 4y ago
Checking out The Guardian's current UK page headlines: public sector strikes, controversy around media involved in a Rwanda visit, putin war crimes arrest warrant, actor dies, actor has blood cancer, labour party racism claims, SNP head of communications resigns due to failures, female footballers criticise another article, london bridge terrorist attack memorial, supermarkets fined after death of employee, something about the conservatives party upset someone wasn't prosecuted. Followed by a row for the Ukraine invasion followed by a spotlight section containing: "the poison umbrella" on cold war killings, some babble about hugh grant and complaining about the Oscars, a somewhat not negative story about childcare funding? ~20 completely negative and/or garbage babbling stories on the page before one somewhat decent one sounds exactly the same to me.

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swalling 4y ago

This is approaching the status of truism to anyone who has worked in journalism. It’s not just the macabre dopamine rush of car crashes and natural disasters. Critiques involving total and complete destruction of the restaurant/play/movie/album — like this classic takedown of Guy Fieri’s monstrosity of a Times Square restaurant https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-times-square.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant... —always draw the most eyeballs.

JoeOfTexas 4y ago

I like to see both points of views between Democrats and Republicans. I made a little website with a side-by-side of the top posts for each party from reddit. https://www.worstofboth.com/ https://www.worstofboth.com/

sacnoradhq 4y ago

No shite! :) Actually, it's much more specific than that: outrage. Novelty makes it more viral. Propinquity also increases the response (similarity between reader and subject). In terms of manufacturing consent/sentiment, people who watch more local news tend to drift their views of police and authorities to more favorably. And everyone should know what the effect is of Fox News on its viewers.

exodust 4y ago

I think it's because people care about fixing broken things in the world. There's no mystery here. We want to know what's broken in order to discuss and debate solutions. If there's perception of injustice or bad practice in the community, then yes people will click the negativity. Apart from that there's the "popcorn" consumption, where negative things are more entertaining.

agniikaii 4y ago

Negativity tends to last longer in comparison with positivity. People remember and are attracted to the bad because the good is secondary

thomastjeffery 4y ago

I think the situation is a bit more complex than this; or at least that it can be. The thing driving consumption is engagement. So what can news provide that drives engagement? Incomplete narrative. Conflict is probably the most familiar place to find an incomplete narrative. The easiest way to present conflict is from a negative perspective. A problem that is missing a solution is very easy to engage with. Mystery is another. What really happened? What will happen next? Speculate! These are broadly considered "lazy journalism", and for good reason. Controversial narratives are trivial to construct, even when the controversy itself is fake. Mystery is either an incomplete story or speculative fiction. --- The best works of journalism present a complete story, but that doesn't leave much to engage with. It might be interesting. It might be complicated. It might be important. Is that enough? Sometimes. Stories that good don't get written every day. If they did, they would become relatively mundane. The news does get published every day. What can we do except to fill the days in between with conflict and mystery? What kinds of engagement are actually positive? Can they compete? --- I visit hacker news because it is thriving with examples of positive engagement. New tools, educational exposition, open questions, historical exploration, etc. Many of the posts here aren't news per se, but they are better than vain controversy. I think that news organizations should diversify their content and presentation formats. Find more alternatives to "new" than opinion and speculation. Present opportunities for objectivity instead of neatly wrapped conclusions.

anonymous344 4y ago

News are not news anymore. They are fake headlines just fishing for one more click. Real News should be government driven. News and not click headlines. And it is in finland and GB, atleast one alternative among the market ones. Don't know about the GB one but in finland the YLE has crazy overgrown budget that just grows and grows, too many people working with too much time and the result is that it's not anymore "government basic information agency for every citizen" but a hundreds of ppl with no real work, but just to make gay, lesbian and lqbqt content on the headlines and everywhere. The amount of unbiblical sickness of sex-related vomiting is just so much that it must be the end of times..

EricE 4y ago

Dirty Laundry Don Henley [Verse 1] I make my livin' off the evenin' news Just give me somethin', somethin' I can use People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry [Verse 2] Well, I coulda' been an actor, but I wound up here I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear Come and whisper in my ear Give us dirty laundry [Chorus] Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em all around [Verse 3] We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at five She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye It's interesting when people die Give us dirty laundry [Verse 4] Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry [Verse 5] You don't really need to find out what's goin' on You don't really wanna know just how far it's gone Just leave well enough alone Eat your dirty laundry [Chorus] Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're stiff Kick 'em all around [Post-Chorus] (Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're stiff Kick 'em all around) [Verse 6] Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie We love to cut you down to size We love dirty laundry [Verse 7] We can do "The Innuendo", we can dance and sing When it's said and done, we haven't told you a thing We all know that crap is king Give us dirty laundry! [Outro] (Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down When they're up, when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down Kick 'em when they're up Kick 'em when they're down)