Diary – 22 February 2018

Everyone’s mood is affected by the news, especially bad news. A recent review found that heavy news-watchers show ‘misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, desensitisation, and in some cases … complete avoidance of the news.’ As someone who has written one book documenting the historical decline of violence (The Better Angels of Our Nature) and a new one documenting progress in every other dimension of human flourishing (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress), my emotional fortunes are even more tightly yoked to the disasters of the day, I am apt to take episodes of violence and oppression not just as depressing developments but as personal affronts and professional rebukes. To make news consumption bearable, I remind myself of my own advisories. As long as bad things have not vanished from the face of the earth, there will always be enough to fill the news.