We might all be getting addicted to bad news. I was thinking about this point as I considered my own reactions to two other disturbing stories I read this week. The first was about an outbreak of measles in a Broward County Florida school where 11 kids were unvaccinated and over 100 may now be at risk.
The second was a new campaign by controversial political activist group The Lincoln Project which used AI to bring Donald Trump’s emotionally abusive father back to life to berate his son about how ashamed he is. Your reaction to both stories almost certainly depends on your beliefs … but should it?
Both stories are sad and have identifiable victims. Children are getting sick due to their parent’s choices, and a man who was likely abused as a child is being targeted in an attempt to have him relive that trauma as an adult. These aren’t the sort of stories that anyone should take pleasure in, but some are. Which leads to the question – is reading a stream of bad news making us bad people?
How Bad News Might Be Making Us Worse Humans
