Alarm fatigue is not exactly the right word for what I'm trying to describe: We need a new word for the oversaturation of everything being a crisis and everything being of critical importance, which is particularly pervasive in today's world of news alerts and instant information. I've heard "fearmongering" and "news fatigue," but there's no exact term for when everything is sensationalized to be the end of the world or of pressing need to know. This is partly due to news being a business now and needing more eyeballs, and nothing gets more eyeballs than screaming news alerts in bold and in red, begging the reader to clickand care about the issue. It's also prevalent in American Red Cross donation solicitations, as I constantly get emails saying platelets are "critically low," there's a "critical shortage," as if the reason it's low is because I haven't donated, or if I donate there won't still be a shortage. News Flash: there will always be a critical need for platelets, because their shelf life is just 5 days, so you can get all the platelets you want right now, but in 5 days you'll still need a fresh round of platelets. I don't think the messaging is effective: it's like the Boy who cried wolf, an old parable about not exaggerating or lying about danger: you do it too many times, and nobody believes it anymore. (In this case, even if it's true that there is a shortage), people just lose interest.
It's the same thing with the news. My anxiety levels on a daily basis: high in the morning when I wake up to log in to my computer to start working, get into the flow of things, lower stress level during lunch, pick back up in the afternoon when I want to finish all the work and doing check-in calls when I realize I have to present something or speak on something, and drop much lower after the day is done, to zero or negative when I'm running and destressing, and then suddenly........BOOM there's a breaking alert on a news item, and the president has tweeted something, and it's going to be World War III, or we are going to be a dictatorship soon, or a fascist country, or on the other side there's a new trans controversy, or Nancy Pelosi sold her shares of Apple and Nvidia stock so what does that mean for the stock market, to the Eagles won the Super Bowl which the previous 5 times they did that, the stock market tanked massively later that year...... It's just too much, and it's all presented in this manipulative, emotionally controlling way to get your attention to play on your emotion. Certain words are triggers that the news and algorithms know how to trigger your inner fears, setting off some sort of internal alarm. (For blood donations it's the idea that patients won't be able to get the platelets they need, their surgeries need to be be postponed or cancelled, and I admit it works). Part of the reason I oppose Donald Trump becoming president again is not even that much about his politics, although there are some problematic areas, and it's not the litany of issues any Trump critic can rattle off from the top of one's head....no, it's the fact that him just being in the Presidency creates so much anxeity and alarm in everyone's minds, on both sides of the aisle, the liberals hate him and criticize his every move (sometimes with reason, sometimes somewhat exaggerated) and the conservates are busy defending and applauding his every move and trying to "own the liberals;" it just raises the temperature to a temp much out of my comfort though (even more than the 77 degrees MJ keeps our home at, a little high for me but OK in the winter) and feeling like a constant alarm going off at all times. You ever live in a building or work at a school or office of some kind where the fire alarm goes off constantly? It's so annoying. You can't get back to work, you're constantly distracted, the alarm is just constantly in your ear and your mind you can't even think. That's what news and information transfer is like now. And even when the alarm stops momentarily, before the next one starts, you can hear the reverberations of those alarms in your mind, like your body has adjusted to that sound and can't unhear it. That's also how I feel about the alarmist news now. I'm tired. I'm fatigued. I'm wait for it........"newstired?"
No comments:
Post a Comment