Every day, people turn on the TV or use social media to gather information to understand what is happening in their lives. When they log on to social media or turn on the local or national news, they are bombarded with violence, war, destruction and content that is meant to enrage and upset them. Why is that the case? Why do so many people look at that kind of content and assume the rest of the world is like this? There is a theory called Mean World Syndrome, which states that those who consume a significant amount of violent media come to believe that the world is more dangerous and threatening than it is, which leads to increased worry about crime and victimization. It is a problem that is plaguing America as we speak because people see that violent national crime has dropped according to the Real-Time Crime Index . The numbers peaked in 2022 before continuing on a steady decline to today, which are some of the lowest numbers since COVID-19, but people still don’t fe...