Addicted or Overwhelmed? Your brain on the news | Hannah Gelbart | TEDxMedUniGraz

Quick Overview

The core message of Hannah Gelbart's talk is that constant exposure to negative news, driven by evolutionary negativity bias and algorithmic amplification, leads to feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, which is counterproductive to being an informed citizen; she suggests interrupting this cycle by noticing one's emotional response, balancing one's mental diet with positive content, and being selective about news sources to maintain mental health.

Key Points: Four in ten people actively avoid news because constant exposure to negative events like wars, natural disasters, and political conflicts causes feelings of overwhelm and anxiety, as shown by Reuters Digital News Report data (00:29, 02:57). The human brain possesses a negativity bias, meaning the amygdala (the brain's alarm system) is wired to prioritize threats, leading to stronger emotional and physical stress responses to negative news than positive news (04:48, 08:07). Research, including studies on 9/11 footage and political events, confirms that viewing traumatic news footage activates the same brain regions associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), even if the viewer did not experience the event firsthand (05:43, 06:18). News outlets and social media algorithms often amplify negative content because it is more emotionally intense, triggering stronger engagement and thus driving algorithmic prioritization (08:30, 09:21). Gelbart proposes a three-step approach to manage this news consumption cycle: 1) Notice how you feel and interrupt the cycle, 2) Balance your mental diet, and 3) Be selective, not saturated (13:30). Balancing the mental diet involves actively seeking out stories of hope and solutions, rather than completely avoiding the news, to ensure the brain receives necessary information without emotional burnout (09:41, 10:08). The speaker, a journalist herself, confesses to struggling with the urge to doomscroll, highlighting that the goal is not to stop reading news entirely, but to change how we engage with it (00:35, 09:38).