Tired of Negative News: Maybe the Ostrich Was Right All Along

Scrolling through Facebook tonight, I see two horrible news stories. A gunman randomly shooting at cars outside of Boston. Then just a quick scroll down to the local news highlights an obituary of two kids, aged 6 and 7, with no context on how they died. I was thinking a rare illness or an accidental death at home

due to carbon monoxide posioning. Check the comments, and forgive me for being naive: it was a double homicide by their mother who fled to Vermont.

Why do we continually want to reinforce sadness in our lives? The morbid curiosity upon which the media goliaths profit makes some rich while making more sick. Our default for entertainment need not be shock, awe, disaster, and or devastation.

You can opt out, they say. Live like the ostrich. Turn it off and turn away. True, to some extent, but Palo Alto has already hooked us. We will be back. They know it.

Horror, True-Crime, and Murder Mysteries will always remain popular on Netflix. The human desire to peer into the gruesome may be innate, and more prevalent than many will admit.

Even if we can’t completely ignore the inevitable daily doom - the Ostrich needs to take a break to eat - we need to find ways to reduce its frequency. Facebook groups run “Saturday business posts” days to relieve the daily influx of endless self-promotion. Perhaps the news behemoths can morph toward a moratorium on instantaneous tragedy posting and tee those stories up for the people who will actually wait in line to see them.