Is News Bad For Your Health?

[LazyGun]

News if bad for you, m'kay?

At least, thats what this article is suggesting. Makes for interesting reading, I think.

From the article
"ews is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress."

and
"News increases cognitive errors. News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: "What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

Quite interesting, given recent discussions over the focus and agenda of some media outlets and indeed on the MMR/Wakefield controversy....

[FredPuli43]

Yes, jno, that link is to the kind of thing I had in mind :). Someone,Ben Goldacre perhaps, has contrasted the many things that the Mail says research shows to be bad for health which are later claimed by the paper to be good for you, in some cases helping to prevent the illness which it previously said that they contributed to.