World of Hysteria, is Everything Really That Bad?

How often do you see people talk about how awful the world is, everything is going to hell, and the sky is falling? If you’re on any sort of social media I imagine you see it every day. I’m not talking about the casual comment about how the weather sucks, or Monday’s are the worst. I mean people sitting in some Western country, drinking an artisan coffee, posting on their $900 phone about how awful the world is.

It’s not entirely their fault, part of it is perspective. There’s entire generations of people who don’t know what it’s like to live under the fear of starvation, disease, or war in the west. Especially here in America, what was the last generation who practiced air-raid drills in classrooms? I can remember my mom talking about visiting her grandmother in Oklahoma, where they still had an outhouse and a tub in the kitchen. Imagine living life without indoor plumbing. Are you old enough that your parents or grandparents still said things like “This isn’t a restaurant,” and “You eat what you take,” when it came to dinner time? That comes from a time when food was literally a luxury and people didn’t know when they’d eat next. How many, who have the luxury to post their complaints online, can say they live with that reality today?

Unfortunately, perspective isn’t the only factor here. Sure, it’s easy to think that the world is awful when you don’t have anything else to compare it to. But, when our news media gives us nothing but bad news and stories about the sky falling it’s even worse. Look at your local paper, or national papers. Watch the news. How many leading stories are something good?

This isn’t a new idea. Even during the founding of our country the media was criticized for focusing on slanderous and vile stories, and the people for paying for it. It’s a disturbing symbiotic relationship we have with the media. Sex sells, right? So does violence. We eat it up, and they feed it to us. But does the world actually reflect this sense of pending Armageddon that people seem to live in fear of?

Would it surprise you to know that violent crime rates in the U.S. have fallen since their peak in 1991? Almost half of what we had when I was a Sophomore in High School. How many people reading this were even alive in 1991? Over longer periods of time, that rate is on the decline as well. The homicide rate in the 1700s was somewhere around 30 per 100,000 and in 2016 it was at 5.3. But how often do we see people talking about being afraid of being assaulted or murdered? I think part of that is because of how common it is in the news. Every day the news is covering a shooting, rape, or assault. It happens every day, so people naturally think it is more likely to happen to them. 5.3 in 100,000. There’s 300 Million people in the U.S. Your chances of getting killed by another human being are pretty slim. Facts don’t matter, people feel scared, because they’ve been told to feel scared.

Take the terrifying trend of school shootings. Compare that to serial killers of the late 70s and 80s. How often do we hear about serial killers in the news now? The only time people talk about those are in the latest Netflix special. Even when it was always in the news there really weren’t that many, but they reduced America to terror. Everyone thought they would be a victim, because that’s all the media talked about. Now it’s schools.

According to this article, as of May 9th, there were 8 school shootings in the U.S., but take a look at the list. The first event was a kid shot with a pellet gun, without life-threatening injuries. One was a staff member, targeted by the assailant, and another was at an after school event. This article states there have been 22 as of July of this year. The first event was a man riding his bike through a school parking lot while shot. Another is a man shot near Savannah State University. Point is, our media likes to make things seem as bad as possible because it sells clicks.

But, let’s take that number, 22, hell let’s double it since it’s October and that last article is a few months old. 1 is too many, but they happen. We aren’t going to stop them until people start discussing the issue honestly so I’m going to discuss it honestly. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics there are 139,874 schools in the United States. You have a .03 percent chance of being shot at or near a school. Yet people are terrified that it’s going to happen to their child, and children are terrified it will happen to them. I can’t blame them; no one is treating this issue honestly.

Don’t get me wrong, (and it sucks that this has to be said because someone out there is looking at me like I’m a monster). One child shot at school is one too many. I want this trend to stop, and I want a solution found as soon as possible. I don’t think we’ll get there any time soon, because people are so focused on spouting the answer that looks good. But, we have to be realistic, and not hysterical. Your kid is more likely to die falling down the stairs than getting shot at school, but death by stair isn’t a trendy news story. Just like I want this fixed, I want people to stop living in fear of the world because of what they read in the news.

I think another cause is the amount of news, and the speed with which it is delivered. It’s easy to think the world is going up in flames if every time you turn on the news, pick up your phone, check social media, or grab a paper, all you see is how the world is going up in flames. 30 years ago, when I was old enough to start noticing things like news, we didn’t have 24 hour cable channels playing the latest tragedy on repeat. There was no Facebook or Twitter to constantly deliver bad news and people’s opinions on it. Now you not only get flooded with the latest bad thing, but you get flooded with loads of misinformation. Just a few days ago I saw three separate posts on Facebook about mass shootings in the U.S., all with different stats. None of them sourced from any sort of news article, but treated as if they’re fact. How can they all be fact if they aren’t even the same figure?

Point is, every day the world is better than it was the day before. More people are more free than their parents before them. Fewer people live in abject poverty and starvation every year. Does that mean the world’s perfect? No, of course not. Never will be. We still have a lot of work to do, but the world isn’t getting worse. Recently I was at a convention in Indy, probably the largest gaming convention in the world with record attendance every year. We were in a ballroom packed with people who were able to spend loads of money and take days off of work to be there. Someone was commenting on how awful the world was getting. Literally surrounded by more people able to spend more leisure time than previous years, and more disposable income than previous years, lamenting about how much worse the world has gotten. Perspective.

You know one thing that’s gotten worse? Suicide rates, especially among young men and boys. While violent crime falls, and people beat their chests about how dangerous the world is getting, more and more depressed and lost young people are die to this epidemic. Where’s the constant news on that? Does it not sell enough clicks, or help push a politicians pet project? 30% increase in death by suicide between 2000 and 2016. Don’t you think that should cause more of a stir?

At the end of the day, the world’s not getting worse. In general people are more well-off, safer, and more free than any generation before them. Of course there are still things to work on, stuff to improve, and problems to solve. Not everyone has everything they need to get by, or the same freedoms as other people. But, a lot of people are letting the Chicken Little media convince them the sky is falling when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course, you may have a personal issue you need help with or a cause you believe in. That’s normal, and commendable. Standing up for the oppressed, like women in bondage in third world countries, or homeless veterans here at home, is a worthy cause. Just don’t let hysteria rule you. You may find it’s easier to work on those problems if you don’t believe the world’s going to end tomorrow anyway.