What the hell is going on with the world??

[Mummytotwonow]

So far this week:

• Poor lady missing in the woods
• Mob gang beat up the school girl
• Headteacher and daughter killed
• Over 7000 people killed in Turkey earthquake
• Continuing cost of living crisis
• wars going on
• so on and so on

Has it always been this bad or am I being over sensitive? I feel so depressed my children are growing up in this world.

I know there are good things going on and good people out there but all I see is doom and gloom and awful events happening. It’s easy to say step away from the news but is that just turning a blind eye?

I just don’t know anymore… feel like either the world has gone mad or I have. It’s so overwhelming 😢

Agree, it's the 24/7 nature of news now along with the very visual format we have now which is almost impossible to avoid. Decades ago we would have mostly read/heard about these things, perhaps with a few photos. Now we see footage of tiny children being pulled from the rubble of a destroyed building and the bodies of their families lying on the ground. Watching the news tonight has made me decide it's time for a break from it all. It gets overwhelming.

Not really quite the point but recently watched Lucy Worsley's programme about the black death and that did make me think things really have been so, so much worse than they are now.

I'm pretty sure you know you are being ridiculous op. Even the quickest Google will tell you that this is the safest time to be alive. Just take a look at the increase in world wide life expectancy over the past 50 years and how it's increased year on year.

Cantwait4 Summer I disagree..

'Around the globe, some 902 species have been documented as extinct. The actual number is thought to be much higher because some are never formally identified, and many scientists warn the earth is in an "extinction crisis" with flora and fauna now disappearing at 1,000 times the historical rate'

and yes 'The Black death' killed more people then Covid, but not in my lifetime..

You get the picture.. its hard for some to not be extremely concerned about whats going on around them.

listen to the 6pm headlines on radio 4 in car on way home from work, then that’s it. 5 mins of news per day.

It has been particularly bad this past week and the earthquake is just terrible. I cannot think of anything worse than knowing your relative is trapped under rubble and you are helpless to do anything.

Yes, things are getting much worse. Ask yourself who is running the world. Who, or what political ideology, has, over decades, taken hold of most information streams, governments, political parties even the supposedly opposing ones, societal values, agendas, policies, schools, giant corps, global orgs, the Bill Gates types, entertainment and social media and culture.

We should be questioning what we’re told by these people, people who exempt themselves from the mandates, regulations, and restrictions they impose on the masses. They market their agendas, with the help of a complicit media, with appealing slogan-like labels and pit the public against anyone who resists their manipulations. They control the money, our tax money, and plenty of it goes into their pockets. Notice they don’t show us exactly what they do with it. They claim they are taking care of us. Are they? They claim to know what’s good for us. Do they?

It comes and goes. Sometimes the news is all very depressing and other times there is good mingled with the bad. Take time away from the news if you find it hard.

Or actively look for the good - even amongst the terrible earthquake stories there are hundreds of people risking themselves to try to help those trapped, or recover bodies so family can properly bury their loved one. Quiet acts of goodness which can be difficult to see when surrounded by the horror.

In addition to the 24/7 news, there's also just more people in the world to do bad things. Population of the UK has nearly doubled since 1900. Thats twice as many nutcases wondering around, twice as many murderers, twice as many people to die in an earthquake, twice as many people to walk past who might give you Covid etc

Was saying the same as you OP to my DH this evening. I don’t watch the news, but I check the BBC news app. I am finding it very overwhelming.

I've practised cutting off news for months at a time since last year. Each time it did good to my mental health.

I'm supposed to be on a new round of break at the moment, again/still thanks to the Tory. But I'm too nosy about a few other things that are going on, hence a bit slack with the break...

Try it. Not a lot that you can change. So better to preserve your own sanity to turn blind eyes occasionally...

Terrible things happen every day all over the world. Much more than the 5 things the media have picked as “The News”.

In a small 100 years modern medicine means most kids get to their 5th birthday.

Life isn't, never was, never will be fluffy clouds.

It's messy and hard.

Are you in a dry house, with clean tap water, a fridge to keep food unnaturally cool and fresh and a heating system to fend off winter temperatures? With a private vehicle to get from A-B when you want? Do your kids go to school even the girl ones without you having to pay and is there a basic free health service that meant you had access to midwives and doctors giving birth. Then you are doing fairly well compared to the world population.

Wait until the warming climate means the malaria mosquito thrives in the UK.

Life is messy.

But it could be a whole lot worse.

Until recently we'd had 75 years without a war in Europe - an unprecedented time of peace.

LOL. Apart from Ireland, ex-yugoslavia, Armenia, Cyprus, georgia, Moldova, Czechia etc yeah I guess you're right.

OP have you gone a while without watching the news? Sometimes it's overwhelming when you tune back in to it.

But ask yourself: in the intervening time, did you still know what was going on? Broadly enough? I bet you did. So just tune out again. Seriously what is the point of hearing an ongoing narrative about stuff you can't do anything about that changes all the time anyway?

Well no, but that's not all that's going on is it?

Plus there's always been awful disease and starvation in 3rd world countries, climate change became an issue for other countries long before it really affected us Brits and many families/pensioners still lived in poverty.

I'm old OP (64) and I can promise you that this is nothing unusual.

I remember Aberfan, Biafra, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Floods, Famines and now Pestilence (Covid).

Look at history. This is nothing compared to Plague, Sweating Sickness and WW1 and 2.

Famine was rife in pre industrial ages, literally starving to death. In the hundreds of thousands.

Educate yourself and thank your stars that you were born when you were, not a few hundred years ago, or in another country.

In many many ways, you have won the lottery of Life.

Very eloquently put

What do you mean @poisonoak?

The full moon, the recent comet, the magnetic poles shifting etc.

This, exactly.
There’s always been huge events like earthquakes and murders and people missing, but we only got news a few times a day on TV or in newspapers.
Now we tend to follow news stories online as they update and have a constant stream of headlines pinged at us.
It’s information overload at times.

You have to try to think of the good things that happen but go unreported to balance it out a bit.

@TooBigForMyBoots I forgot to tag you but replied.

I suspect Poisonoak has been at the cooking sherry 🙄

Is been worse several times in my lifetime.

I don't watch news or read newspapers. I occasionally hear it in the radio if it comes on when I'm listening but it's only 5min usually. I occasionally read BBC news website, and I see things on here (which is mainly opinion and may or may not be true so I don't engage with it too much or take it too seriously). Focus on avoiding it all and choose to do things that cheer you up. Watch a feel-good film or comedy show, escape into a novel, walk through the park on a sunny day with an ice cream, go to an exercise class or hobby group, phone a friend. There's some things you can't avoid but to an extent life is what you make it.

How do people manage to stay informed and not get overwhelmed

Your first three examples:

Poor lady missing in the woods
Mob gang beat up the school girl
Headteacher and daughter killed

Reading any more than the headlines is prurient. Watching videos is very prurient.

Your next three:

Over 7000 people killed in Turkey earthquake
Continuing cost of living crisis
wars going on

Are more global than personal, and it’s good to be informed beyond the headlines, except, concentrate on the “why have the earthquakes been so devastating” type articles rather than the “baby-pulled-from-rubble” stuff.

Generally, I’d say, get your news from the BBC or a quality newspaper and stay away from Twitter and the gutter press.

Well it could be true. It could be that we're really fucked this time. Ok so people have been saying it since people started talking but one time they're going to be right.