The work of Kathryn Buchanan, a researcher at the University of Essex in England, shows in particular that the broadcasting of reports on generosity, altruism or ordinary heroism reinforces confidence and helps to fight against depression.
Kathryn Buchanan, doctor of psychology and researcher at the University of Essex in England, wanted to measure the effect of “bad news”, information, in the sense of what is broadcast by the media, on our psyche, on the morale of an audience. She wanted to verify an intuition that, faced with negative, sad, even atrocious information, crime, miscellaneous facts, war, attacks, we remain stuck, we do not zap, we sometimes even seek to have more details, even to pay the price mentally, that is to say, to come out of there completely depressed.
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An American study had already shown that spending too much time looking at negative information on the news feed of social networks clearly fueled depressive tendencies. Kathryn Buchanan wanted to measure the opposite: the effect of positive news. She therefore assembled a panel of 1,800 volunteers, which she divided into two groups. At the first, she only watched so-called “bad” news: reports on the Manchester bombing, animal abuse or attacks between teenagers. And to the second group, she showed the same thing, but interspersed with other reports, on veterinarians who treat homeless dogs for free, or influencers who help teenagers in the grip of depression.
Information generates emotions
All participants completed a questionnaire to determine their state of mind, before and after each session. And the result obtained proved to be appealing: “The group that was presented with a mix of negative and positive information emerged in a much better psychological state than the group that saw only harsh and violent information. Not only did their morale not dropwrites Kathryn Buchanan in a summary of published by The Conversation, but participants say they have a more positive view of humanity than they had before taking part in the study.”
His results have just been published in the scientific journal Plos One, she insists that more research is now needed, over months of viewing and not days, but what all of this tells us is that information is never without effect, it generates emotions, creates an atmosphere in society and in human relationships. Mistrust or trust, fear or hope, withdrawal or generosity. That doesn’t mean we should only watch the news with rose-colored glasses, it just means we can choose what we highlight.