The Media Age and American Anxiety

A mindset shift and focusing on controllable behaviors are key to reducing the anxiety epidemic.

By Rebekah Wanic and Nina Powell

Recently, many media outlets highlighted recommendations from the U.S. Preventative Service Task Force that all adults under 65 be screened for anxiety. Among other things, a NYT’s article mentions that people are experiencing extraordinary levels of stress related to many factors “including inflation and crime rates, fear of illness and loss of loved ones from Covid-19.” Additionally, data consistently show high levels of self-reported anxiety. There is much here to be addressed.

First, we must keep in mind that stress is different from anxiety (although many now conflate them) and secondly, we must recognize that both stress and anxiety are a natural part of the human experience and not in themselves pathological. It is true that chronic stress, particularly associated with uncertainty about the future, can contribute to clinical issues with anxiety. However, while stressors have (and always will) exist, the discussion about rising anxiety nearly always fails to focus needed attention on the very real and necessary question of whether these reports of chronic anxiety and increased stress are not, in part, a consequence of more controllable aspects of American society, for example the over-consumption of social media and 24-7 access to news.

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Trying times are not new, not “unprecedented,” and not only a part of recent history. And, despite the very real concerns that Americans might have about the stability and safety of the world around them, most are ensconced in situations far more safe and comfortable than ever before. For instance, the rate of violent crime has been steadily decreasing for decades, notwithstanding a recent spike in murder rates. (For a fuller discussion of these issues, we suggest Factfulness by Hans Rosling or Our Own Worst Enemy by Tom Nicols.) Thus, we must consider what other factors might be contributing to self-reports of stress and anxiety; things that are newer aspects of the human experience.

Access to information is generally considered to be a good thing, and the internet and search engines have made finding answers to even the most obscure questions relatively easy. However, too much of a good thing is often not a good thing. With too much cake, we end up with a stomach ache; with too much media consumption, we end up with anxiety.

The old newsroom phrase, “if it bleeds, it leads,” highlights the importance of using emotion, particularly negative emotions such as fear, to grab viewers’ attention. This means that information about death, destruction, and imminent peril is frequently presented, shared and thus remembered more by users, giving them a very dark view of the world around them. Furthermore, social media platforms and search engine algorithms work to create not only filter bubbles that provide individuals with skewed access to the available information and also increase access to emotion-provoking content. If you are worried about increasing crime and click on a story about crime in NYC, then your news app or platform will start to present you with more articles on crime, fueling your impression that crime is spiraling out of control. If you are concerned about inflation and rising interest rates and visit a webpage to learn more, you will be presented with ads and links to articles suggesting that the situation is far worse than ever imagined.

This phenomenon taps directly into a principle of social and cognitive psychology - our use of heuristics. Heuristics are mental short-cuts that allow us to process events in our environment quickly and efficiently. This is an essential feature of the human cognitive system, allowing us to predict our environment with reasonable accuracy so that we are not constantly surprised or paralyzed when encountering new information. When relied on too heavily in judgments and perceptions that contribute to a worldview, heuristic processing means that we are often forming inaccurate impressions of the world based on content that is most easily and readily available and accessible. In the context of media consumption, use of heuristics to form judgments about the state of the world are based on incomplete information that is made constantly available in the form of 24-hour news cycles and social media algorithms that are designed to feed back to us what we intuitively believe and what will get our emotions activated.

Consider how social media apps provide heightened accessibility - users can scroll through and easily interact with content that presents incomplete information tailored to the user’s intuitions about the world. In addition to providing another source for sharing news about unpleasantness, it also provides an interpersonal setting that motivates anxiety. Studies have shown that using social media can exacerbate feelings of anxiety and also depression, in part because it provides social comparison information that can make users feel as if they are missing out or living lives that are less interesting, popular or successful than those they view. When constantly presented with information that others are graduating, getting promoted, buying houses, getting married or any other of the typically curated self-image-promoting material that gets shared most frequently via social media, it is no wonder individuals start to feel like they are being left behind. Beyond that, when one posts something about themselves, they may feel anxious about the public reception and upset when not receiving the type or quantity of feedback they desire.

Ignoring these contextual variables and simply recommending anxiety screening on the basis of increased self-reports of anxiety without a closer look at how individual behaviors may play a role in psychological outcomes is dangerous. Because the psychology industrial complex (the myriad types of mental health practitioners and associated industries producing drugs, goods and services to assist in treatment) thrives off the pathologization of normal experience, we cannot look to mental health professionals for solutions. No amount of treatment or medication is likely to be successful if we do not acknowledge the context that allows individuals to reinforce their anxious feelings.

If we hope to combat the problem, we must move beyond simple calls to raise awareness and reliance on providing more traditional treatment for stress and anxiety. Instead, we must work to change the mindsets and conditions that create these experiences and acknowledge rather than ignore or minimize the role of individual behavior, in particular how reliance on social media and news outlets fuels a variety of self and safety related concerns. 

Individuals must make the effort to disconnect.  It is unrealistic to expect any reduction in stress and anxiety if we do not shift the mental health narrative, specifically the discourse surrounding anxiety, to considering how individual behaviors and choice reinforce negative experiences.  No amount of pathologizing, diagnosis, treatment, or awareness of mental health will be effective without a nuanced look at the role individuals and society play in their own experience of the world, for better or worse. Rather than victim-blaming, this view is empowering. If you cannot fall asleep with the lights on, you turn them off. It is the same with apps, computers and television. We must turn them off to get our emotional rest. The sooner the better.