I read a piece on ScienceDaily that put words to something I have been feeling: Your brain was never designed for this much bad news.
The gist is that our brains evolved a negativity bias to spot local threats and keep us alive. That instinct made sense when the threats were a predator in the grass or a drought next valley over. It does not scale to a phone that serves up a war, a financial shock, a climate disaster, and a violent crime all before lunch.
The researchers argue the fix is not to look away—democracy needs informed citizens—but to be more deliberate about how, when, and where we consume news: contain it to set windows, choose depth over volume, separate awareness from action, and steer clear of rage bait.
Worth a read if you have ever felt like you were standing under a waterfall of bad news.