Is the World as Violent as TV and Social Media Make it Out to Be?

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 feel safe leaving their own homes. 

The data shows that the world is a lot safer now than it has been for a while, but the news, typically the local news, doesn’t show normal or uplifting stories because they are not the reports that generate attention and revenue. 

 

The element that is important to highlight is conflict. When something is troubling, it causes emotional distress and people are more likely to click on that story than something one sees every day. 

An example to give is which story you are more likely to read based on the headline “Plane Lands Safely at Airport” or “Plane Crashes Into River Killing 59 People”. 

The majority of individuals are going to lean more to the second headline based on the drama of a tragedy such as a plane crash and that it is more unusual for a plane to crash than land safely at the airport.

Virality is the idea that sells, not empathy, unfortunately, and news agencies are starting to take full advantage of that with the rise of misinformation that is being spread nonstop. 

Whether you hop on X or Bluesky, both sites are rampant with misinformation of individuals who are trying to push their agenda with their target political demographic taking up the site. 

With media companies getting rid of fact-checkers, the job is now falling squarely on the individual to not get roped into something completely false.

That is hard given that the main product currently that is on sale for every social media company to exploit is our attention.

With short-form content driving the market for people’s attention, attention spans are starting to drop at a rapid rate as a 2015 study by Microsoft found that the average attention span of someone from Gen Z is eight seconds.  

With a shrinking attention span, less easy ways to avoid misinformation and money to gain to not post something fair, honest and accurate, people now are less inclined to want to find the truth rather the truth that fits their ideas and beliefs. 

People have to be more incline to want to teach their kids and themselves on media literacy as that currently is the only way to be able to navigate the online sphere responsibly without getting sucked into the lies.

The world is a beautiful place when people put down the phones, turn off the TVs and go outside and experience life for themselves but news and social media don’t want average people spending time together.

If people see that the world isn’t as dangerous as the media wants them to believe, then business would plummet and they would lose relevance. Experience life because away from the screens, people learn a lot about themselves and the world around them.