| Are you guilty of doomscrolling? I only came across this intriguing term recently. And yet I recognized it instantly. Because I periodically catch myself scouring the media and the internet for bad news, crazy views and apocalyptic predictions. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines "doomscrolling" as "a habit of scrolling through social media and news feeds where users obsessively seek for depressing and negative information." And those news and social media sites are happy to oblige. In fact, their algorithms work by examining the content we look at most and feeding us more of it. That can create a vicious cycle, the NIH says, which can lead to compulsive and extremely unhealthy behavior. It's not just algorithms, either. It's also news directors. There's a strong negativity bias that runs through the entire media from the extreme left to the extreme right. These media outlets know that "if it bleeds, it leads." Alexander Green writes about that harmful bias on a regular basis - and how it can affect your mental health and your portfolio. He often points out that this is the best time in history to be alive because most people in the West today are living longer, healthier, safer, richer, freer lives than any generation in history. All true. But I'd like to narrow my focus to the short term, the economy and the financial markets... and suggest that today there are many more reasons to be an optimist than a pessimist. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.