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00:00We are living through the age of Doomerism.
00:03A bunch of very real global crises,
00:05plus the psychological effects of 24-7 news and doom scrolling,
00:09can make it feel like the world is truly falling apart.
00:12The entire planet is about to be destroyed.
00:15For Gen Z, who are coming of age in this environment,
00:18it can be paralyzing.
00:19But how much of this sense of apocalyptic doom is totally warranted?
00:23And how much is shaped by our constant onlineness?
00:26And more importantly, how much of this attitude is really helpful?
00:29In July 2022, Jane Koston wrote a New York Times piece called
00:33Try to Resist the Call of the Doomers,
00:36and how we are experiencing a new religion of profound pessimism.
00:39According to Koston, the problem with Doomerism
00:42isn't that it honestly points out our challenges,
00:44but that it luxuriates in the awful,
00:46and makes people feel so hopeless that they lose agency
00:49and don't work to address what's wrong in the world.
00:52The world is ending.
00:53Sure, things are bad, but every small piece of news
00:56cannot signal the end of the world, right?
00:58So is it possible for us all to just calm down a little?
01:01Today's top headlines,
01:02everything you do is futile.
01:04Can we just relax?
01:09Here's our take on Doomerism,
01:10its impact on Gen Z and mental health,
01:12and how even if there's a lot that is bad right now,
01:15there's also a better way to deal.
01:20In the past few years, the phrase,
01:22I'm tired of living through a major historical event right now,
01:25has become a pretty all-encompassing meme.
01:27From the pandemic, to the storming of the US Capitol,
01:30to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
01:32financial crises, and the climate crisis on top of this,
01:35today's events paint the picture of a world that is extremely unstable and scary.
01:40But our emotional impression of all this is also shaped by our relationship to the media,
01:44which is drastically unlike it was even a few years ago.
01:47It used to be that people waited for the evening newscast
01:52or for the morning newspaper to get their dose of fear.
01:56Now they get it on their phones constantly.
01:58Journalists' job is largely about exposing problems
02:02and holding powerful people and institutions accountable.
02:05So it makes sense that there's going to be a heavy bias towards bad news.
02:09But today, we spend an average of four hours per day on our smartphones,
02:13dramatically increasing the amount of bad news we take in,
02:17and the proportion of our time we dwell on it compared to previous generations.
02:21The world is and always has been a nightmare.
02:22It just seems worse now because of our phones.
02:24There's also an economic incentive driving the negativity that shades all the media we consume.
02:29A study from Harvard Business School confirmed that on Twitter,
02:32negative news spreads farther and wider than positive.
02:36News publications have a vested interest in filling our feeds with fatalism to get clicks,
02:40and we can see this in the panicking, alarmist, catastrophic tone
02:44that characterizes so many headlines today,
02:47even when the stories are actually dealing with relatively minor or moderate levels of problems.
02:52All this has a deep emotional effect that spreads over into our personal lives.
02:56If we're constantly dwelling on terrible events reported in sensational, panicking terms,
03:01then we're going to bring a negative, if not catastrophic, lens to how we view our actual lives,
03:06and our expectations for what's possible or likely. This is known as the availability heuristic.
03:12Essentially, our brains draw on information that's readily available to us.
03:16So if we've been reading a lot about shark sightings or terrorist attacks,
03:20we'll worry more about these than about, say, car crashes,
03:22which are statistically a much higher risk, but very underreported in the news.
03:27So now you sort of internalize this thing, and now all of a sudden you're thinking,
03:30could have happened to me.
03:31A 2022 study from Perspectives in Psychiatric Care showed that consumption of news via social media
03:37rose by nearly 50% during COVID, thanks in part to doom-scrolling and doom-surfing.
03:42Often, people turn to these activities with a desire to self-soothe, but the results say,
03:47doom-surfing and doom-scrolling lead to the experience of emotions of intense anxiety,
03:52uncertainty, apprehension, fear, and feelings of distress, which in turn lead to difficulties
03:57in the initiation of sleep, poor quality of sleep, decrease in appetite, decreased interest in
04:02activities, and low motivation to continue with tasks of the day.
04:06I operate with a pretty high baseline anxiety.
04:09Social media as a news source has changed the way people consume news.
04:13Because people will receive news quickly via their social feeds, they have started spending less
04:18time actually reading the content of news articles to get the full picture,
04:21with social content manager Buffer showing that the average visitor will only spend 15
04:26seconds reading an article they've clicked on. And because there are so many outlets competing
04:31for people's attention, more effort goes into making news shareable and engaging, which doesn't
04:36always equate to the best reporting. As Nicole Martin writes,
04:39timely and sensational news does better, so oftentimes it is overly exaggerated for social.
04:45The consumer has a lot more responsibility, and the consumer then needs to figure out who to trust.
04:53If you're tired of doomerism, why not let Audible help you discover new ways to laugh,
04:58be inspired, or be entertained? New members can try it free for 30 days.
05:03Visit audible.com slash the take or text the take to 500-500.
05:07With an outstanding selection of audiobooks spanning every genre you can think of,
05:11Audible is the home of storytelling. It's an incredible way to escape the doom and gloom
05:15of everyday life and spring into stories. Whatever books you like,
05:18you'll find something ideal on Audible. Personally, I love thrilling page turners,
05:22and if there's a touch of humor in the mix, even better.
05:25That's why I was so delighted to see bestselling author Richard Osmond's new book,
05:29The Bullet That Missed, on Audible. It's narrated by British actress Fiona Shaw,
05:33which is something that sets Audible apart. They use incredible voice actors to create their audiobooks.
05:38But Audible isn't only audiobooks, there are podcasts and series to listen to, too.
05:42Plus, as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog,
05:47including the latest bestsellers and new releases.
05:50So what are you waiting for? Let Audible help you discover new ways to laugh,
05:53be inspired, or be entertained. New members can try it free for 30 days.
05:58Visit audible.com slash the take or text the take to 500-500.
06:02That's audible.com slash the take or text the take to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days.
06:08Audible.com slash the take.
06:12Doomerism is especially unhelpful in a moment when collective mental health struggles are rising.
06:18U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has spoken of the youth mental health crisis
06:22that's been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
06:25When it comes to Doomerism, Gen Z have been dealt a poor hand.
06:28They're coming into adulthood with this media environment as their main experience of what the
06:33greater world is. Constant bad news, framed with exaggeration and hyperbole,
06:38while misinformation spreads rapidly and facts and truth are more questioned than ever.
06:43Okay guys, I'm going to use social media to spread fake news
06:47that Murphy's hired an alt-right figurehead to speak at their pub.
06:50But it can be helpful to remember it's not the first time generations have faced gloomy views of the future.
06:56Millennials were branded the unluckiest generation after they entered the workforce following the 2008
07:01recession and still haven't caught up to other generations financially.
07:05As a result, millennials tend to have pessimistic expectations for their financial futures.
07:10Two minutes ago I turned 36 and staring down the barrel of my own mortality always beats fun.
07:15Like millennials, Gen X were told they were being born into economic prosperity,
07:19only to have the rug pulled out from under them.
07:22Coming of age in the aftermath of Watergate and the Vietnam War,
07:25they rode a wave of cynicism and malaise that came to define Gen X in movies like Slacker,
07:31Days and Confused, and Reality Bites.
07:33We can see a lot of echoes of Gen Z in Gen X's lack of optimism,
07:37fear that in order to make money you'll have to compromise yourself,
07:40and distrust of major institutions.
07:42They tell you to look for the light at the end of the tunnel,
07:44well there is no tunnel, there's no structure.
07:47The underlying order is chaos.
07:50Even baby boomers felt a similar malaise in the post-World War II era,
07:54embodied in the disaffection and isolation of 50s James Dean vehicles,
07:58Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden,
08:00or 60s new Hollywood fare like The Graduate.
08:03The free love and sexual liberation movement that defined boomers as
08:07youths were about rejecting suburban emptiness and an assumed life path
08:11they feared wouldn't fulfill them.
08:13It's unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working
08:17year after year at a job he can't stand.
08:20Coming home to a place he can't stand,
08:22to a wife who's equally unable to stand the same things.
08:25Maybe Doomerism is a cumulative thing.
08:27Each generation's concerns builds on the lasts,
08:30and it's all exacerbated by the modern overexposure to bad news.
08:37Doom doesn't have to be expressed solely in bleak, dark iterations.
08:41It's also taken on more comedic tones.
08:44In the aftermath of World War II, the theater of the absurd gained momentum
08:48through playwrights and thinkers like Samuel Beckett and Albert Camus.
08:51Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that.
08:55Yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.
08:58It's this same philosophy that drives Rick and Morty's Rick Sanchez in Rick and Morty,
09:02whose genius and cosmic awareness makes him highly aware of the meaninglessness and
09:06randomness of so much of life.
09:08When Morty is thrown into the VR game Roy at Blips and Chips,
09:12he experiences an entire life, well-lived, condensed into a two-minute montage with a tragic ending.
09:18But then this is immediately forgotten about.
09:20It just happened.
09:21What the hell?
09:2255 years. Not bad, Morty.
09:23You kind of wasted your 30s though with that whole bird-watching phase.
09:27Rick and Morty explores a multiverse with endless different versions of the characters,
09:31underlining just how unspecial our particular existence may be.
09:35We can see the multiverse concept connected to an absurdist stance in other popular culture,
09:40like Umbrella Academy. There, the titular superheroes travel through time and space
09:44to prevent an oncoming apocalypse, and in doing so they become cult leaders,
09:49start relationships with mannequins, or live on the moon.
09:52Everything Everywhere All at Once also has an apocalyptic threat hanging over protagonist
09:57Evelyn as she encounters versions of herself in multiple universes.
10:01But while this perspective almost makes the characters nihilistic,
10:04in the end, knowledge of all these other potential scenarios makes Evelyn appreciate the one
10:09she's been born into, despite its stresses and less-than-glamorous aspects.
10:13Even in a stupid, stupid universe where we have hot dogs for fingers,
10:20we get very good with our feet.
10:22Even stories that feel more grounded in our current reality lean into the ridiculousness of it.
10:27Don't Look Up, a not-so-loose satire of how the world has buried their heads in the sand over the
10:33climate crisis plays the bizarrely inadequate responses of the government, media,
10:37and tech industry for dark humor — the kind of thing you would laugh at if the absurdity weren't
10:41so accurate.
10:42The entire planet, not just a house.
10:45The entire planet? Okay, well, as it's damaging, will it hit this one house in particular
10:50that's right on the coast of New Jersey, it's my ex-wife's house, I need it to be hit?
10:53Whether films and shows give us zany, unhinged, multiple universes,
10:57or make comedy of a post-apocalyptic version of our world, they point out how in the face of a
11:03doom, humans often maintain a strange veneer of normalcy, mundanity, or shutting off.
11:09Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV.
11:15But while the humor in these portrayals offers an aspect of comfort or coping mechanism,
11:20they're also infused with a strong streak of despair.
11:23We really did have everything, didn't we?
11:26So maybe it's time to lean into that earnestness underneath the dissatisfaction,
11:30to let ourselves feel how much we do care and want to strive to make things work out better.
11:36As Koesten writes, the best way to spur action is to begin from a place of optimism,
11:41a belief that the thing you want really is possible.
11:44Even if the doomerism moment is dark, maybe this mood can bring people together in that darkness,
11:49to inspire us to help each other muddle through.
11:51Gen Z are increasing practices like mindfulness and meditation, both of which seek to ground oneself
11:57in the present moment. The rise of things like digital detoxes are speaking to an awareness that
12:02we need to be more conscious and intentional about our relationships to social media,
12:06news, and our phones. These coping strategies can help dispel the doom and let us manage and engage
12:12with the bad news without spiraling into unchecked negativity. We have to cultivate a mental state that
12:17makes us ready to meet the challenges ahead, not with resignation, but with hope and action.
12:22Sing. But remember to stop for air. And by God, get off Twitter every once in a while.
12:28Thanks for watching The Take. Make sure to subscribe and let us know what you want The Take on next.
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