To think people aren't interested in good news?

[EleonorBronte]

I mean in general, such as news headlines, media, etc.

Even on MN the more incendiary thread titles attract more attention. It isn't a fixed rule obviously but it's fairly common. I think it's maybe how we are as a culture, that we notice stuff that will wind us up, affect our ego, or tell of terrible things before more positive and inspiring material.

Lots pile in to threads arguing about income, class, anger and tragedy. I've done it myself of course .
Sometimes you have to turn off, tune in to something more pleasant and inspiring instead.

Same with the newspapers, so many headlines designed to get attention are awful, absolutely intended to get a knee jerk response or to get us riled up. It could be said that it is relatively easy to create social disconnection and division this way.

I'm sure someone once tried to present 'good news' on tv and it fell flat. It just doesn't seem to get the same amount of attention.

I think you’re probably right, but my two favourite Instagram accounts are @wholesomemeettheinternet and @goodnews_movement which are both lovely snippets of people’s or animals lives.

The good news one has 4m followers, so I’m not the only person who enjoys this kind of thing. I think it’s very easy to fixate on horrible things we can’t change, but it does your heart good to see (for example) a blind young woman playing basketball, or a truck driver getting out of his van to help an old lady across the road.

I sometimes wonder how many perfectly fantastic things happen out there every day, all over the world, but reporters don't hang around ready to jump on it in the same way as bad news.

There must be so much good going on, but if we absorb media it is so easy to think the world is terrible.

Nice to know those accounts exist!

Generally, T here is much less for people to engage in with good news.

With bad news people can think about how to do things differently. How they might have done things. How the subject could “fix” things. Even how they can help. With good news, it’s “just” someone’s story and that’s it.

People like good opportunities. You post a thread with a guaranteed £50 for everyone who can write a limerick I bet it will get plenty of traction. If there’s news that’s hugely good for the people hearing - so there’s something for them to engage with, think about how the news affects them - they tend to be pretty interested.

There was some amazing news a couple of weeks ago - they found Shackleton's lost ship, Endurance. It was in fantastic condition (for something that's been stuck underneath Antarctic ice for 100 years or so!). It was barely reported.

Having said that, do many people really give a shit about that? I can understand that this just isn't interesting to so many. In a similar vein, I couldn't give a monkeys about some kid sending 78p to a football club on the brink of bankruptcy. 'Good news' is individual and all you can really say about it is 'That's great!'. 'Bad news' gives us the opportunity to offer up all sorts of opinions, it affects many more of us and can often be of significant importance.

@RobertaFirmino
That is brilliant news! I knew there was another search for it but didn’t hear they’d been successful. I shall have to go read up now.

Perhaps the good news we all want to hear would be more collective and less personal, such as huge positive changes regarding climate, environment, stuff like that.
The ship and so on are great, but not about to alter our lives.
I suppose we notice things that concern us, to some extent (war, government issues, crime, big changes, etc).

Maybe it's a survival thing and we are just somehow programmed to seek or notice news that isn't groovy

They should rename it "news at 10: it sure ain't groovy".