How To Control Your Media Diet During The Coronavirus

You might be stuck in quarantine, but at least you have your trusty companion with you.

No, not your family. Not your friends. Your screen.

If there’s one source of comfort to be found stuck inside your house for months on end, it’s the your screen. Your laptop. Your phone. It doesn’t matter which.

You’re stuck inside with your screen, but do you really know how to handle it?

But depending on how you interact with your screen it can either be your closest ally or your greatest enemy.

During this crisis, this screen will either provide you with a wealth of entertainment and education or it will drive you into the ground.

The media available to you is powerful. If you want to ride out this crisis in a positive way, it’s absolutely essential that you understand how to control your media diet.

1. Check The News Once A Day.

If you find yourself freaking the fuck out about the Coronavirus, I don’t blame you.

There’s a situation out there and it’s much bigger than you.

You have access to endless,speculating information about the Coronavirus. You can find out the death rates, how many people have died, the number of infected in your area as well as worldwide, theories from scientists about how this will play out (ranging from promising to nightmarish).

All this information with no means whatsoever to do anything about it.

This is the curse of the digital age.

You have endless exposure to all of the bad things ( or potential bad things) happening in the world. But you have very little power to take any actions to remedy the situation.

This is a surefire recipe for maddening anxiety.

700 new cases in California today. Young people not safe from the virus. Economy heading for inevitable recession. Africa sees 50 new cases today.

All of this horrific information, but what can you personally do about it?

You. Sitting in your bedroom. Absorbing headline after headline. What actions can you possibly take to have any affect whatsoever on the Coronavirus situation?

The answer? Nothing.

If you have no power whatsoever to change the situation, why are you checking the news 15 times a day?

It doesn’t matter how many cases there are in your area. Every new number: 100, 1000, 10000. None of these numbers (all of which are probably wildly inaccurate) make any difference to your personal situation.

Knowing each and every detail about the virus. How many strains it has. Where it came from. None of this information makes any difference to your personal situation.

Headlines are powerful.

The mere sight of a headline suggesting an imminent threat can produce a fearful response in many of those who read it. (Especially those prone to anxiety).

The accumulation of seeing headline after headline threatening at the death of your and your loved ones can take a real toll on your psyche. And for what?

Every time you expose yourself to an anxiety inducing stimulus you are only lessening your ability to deal with the virus.

Stress lowers the immune system. With each and every disturbing headline that you read, your immune system is getting weaker and weaker. And stress ia contagious. If you’re stressed, you’ll make those around you stressed too.

Stressing out over each and every headline makes it more likely that you’d experience severe symptoms if you were to catch the virus. And it also makes it more likely that you’ll get sick in some other way at a time when hospitals are struggling.

“Those who do not know how to fight worry die young” – Dr Alexis Carrel

We may be in the midst of a pandemic, but there is still an entire news industry desperately trying to get your clicks. Fear sells. And the dramatic stories about the Coronavirus is sure to bring in clicks (And Ad Revenue).

The news industry will continue to bombard you with headlines that fill you with fear and dread in order to lure in your click.

So do yourself and your immune system a favour: Check the news once a day.

ONCE. Not randomly and sporadically throughout the day. ONCE.

Pick a time. 10:00am. 3:00pm. It doesn’t matter. This will be your news-checking time. Stick to it. Check the news for updates. Get in and get out.

Remember, the impulse you have to constantly check the latest updates and developments is lying to you. You don’t need to see the latest updates. In fact, doing so may even be to your physical detriment. As well as to the detriment to your family and friends around you.

2. Choose Healthy Media. Not Junk Media

You’re stuck inside with you’re media. The quarantine could be an incredibly productive and positive time. On the other hand, it could also be a negative and miserable time.

Which of these two it turns out to be depends largely on which media you consume.

You could spend this quarantine playing video games, watching average movies and masturbating to porn.

On the other hand, you could spend this quarantine learning a new skill, watching perspective-altering cinema or learning about the world through non-fiction reading.

The choice is yours.

Healthy media will enrich your life. It will make you feel good. It will allow you to turn the struggle of living through this virus into a highly positive thing.

Junk media will waste your time, make you depressed and make the months of quarantine seem like months of boredom and anxiousness.

Issac Newton did some of his best work while isolated at his home during the Great Plague Of London in the 1600s. Be like Issac Newton.

This one comes with a caveat. If you’re an anxiety sufferer, temporarily numbing yourself with average movies and video games might be helpful for a few days at a time.

But for the average guy or girl- you should be consuming healthy media. Not junk media.

3. Beware the conspiracy theories.

The coronavirus is extremely fertile soil for conspiracy theories for a few reasons.

1. We still haven’t found patient zero: Unfortunately we’re still unable to find out who was the very first patient for this virus. This allows a flood of conspiracy theories to fill in the gaps.

   One theory circulating in China is that the originally virus came from America. Another is that it came from a bio-lab in Wuhan. And these conspiracy theories are gaining an enormous number of followers on both sides, adding further tension to an already tense situation.

2. The virus came from China: At a time when the USA and China are having an economic war, this virus appears. For conspiracy theorists, this provides a motive behind a possible bio-attack from one of these international powers.

3. Neither the American or Chinese Governments are trustworthy: The American government lied their population into a war in Iraq in 2003. The Chinese government continues to lie about the Tiananmen square massacre in 1989.

   When you can’t trust the authority figures, what’s the difference between the official narrative in mainstream news and the narrative put forward by conspiracy theories? How is the average person supposed to choose between two untrustworthy sources of information?

Now I’m not saying with 100% certainty than none of the conspiracy theories floating around are false. (After all, how could I possibly know something like that?).

But I am saying that the official narrative that the virus came from a wet market in Wuhan seems to be the most likely reality.

Pandemic experts have been expecting a pandemic for decades now. Most of them expected it to come from a Chinese wet market. And impartial experts are saying that there’s no evidence whatsoever that this virus is a bio-weapon.

If it’s a virus that formed in a Wuhan wet market, then it’s a random event and humanity can work together to beat the virus.

On the other hand, if it’s bio-weapon created by the illuminati to depopulate the planet, then we’re fucked. And the second option is far more anxiety provoking than the first.

Conspiracy theorists can’t handle the randomness and complexity of the world. So they create a story that they more easily can understand.

For a clear example of the conspiracy theory mindset, just listen to David Icke (who believes that the world is run by a cult with the goal of enslaving humanity) talk about the coronavirus

Anybody who seems certain about a conspiracy theory is someone that you can’t trust. After all, how can you be certain about something for which there is no proof or evidence.

Human beings like stories. Our minds evolved to understand stories and not to understand an extremely complex world civilisations of over 7 billion people.

When a scary, confusing and worldwide threat like the coronavirus appears, people want to understand it. So stories become incredibly compelling.

My advice is this: Check out the conspiracy theories if you want. But don’t buy in. Conspiracy theories are incredibly compelling and they can easily suck you in.

Think independently and don’t subscribe to any one particular theory of the coronavirus. And don’t shy away from dealing with the sheer complexity of the situation by retreating into a convenient story in which everything makes perfect sense (A conspiracy theory).

So let’s recap:

1. Check the news once a day

2. Choose health media. Not junk media

3. Beware the conspiracy theories

Make your screen your friend during this ordeal and don’t allow it to make a bad situation worse. How you deal with your quarantine is largely affected by how you decide to use your screen time. Don’t underestimate the importance of your relationship with your screen.