2023's forced perspective
Information age over-magnifies chaos
FROM international wars to the ascendancy of AI, it feels like the world is falling apart and we’re at the brink of oblivion. As 2023 comes to a close, media outlets are pumping out “year in review” videos and articles. What they all inspire — from Vox’s “2023, in 7 minutes” to the AP Year in Review and Time’s 2023 roundup — is existential dread.
This has undeniably been a chaotic year. But it’s important to gain some perspective.
Being a human with Internet access — and an up-close view of all the world’s chaos delivered straight to your screen — is insanely unprecedented. And insanely stressful.
Strife in real-time
To say 2023 has been full of bad news is an understatement.
It’s hard to believe that it was just earlier this year that we all bit our nails over a missing submersible, imagining the horror its five wealthy passengers might have been feeling.
Another year of fighting raged on in Ukraine, where the civilian death toll surpassed 10,000. Then came the eruption of a new bloody conflict in Israel that left countless people dead, injured or kidnapped and tore apart social fabrics all over the world — including on our college campuses.
The looming threat of China was on grand display in the form of spy balloons floating over American land — and invading the devices and minds of our children in the form of TikTok.
Natural disasters unfolded across the globe, from a February earthquake in Turkey that left nearly 60,000 dead, to wildfires in Hawaii that razed 17,000 acres this August.
The fact that 2023 is the hottest year on record inspired protests that disrupted thruway traffic and the US Open alike. It has also apparently given 45% of young people aged 16 to 25 so-called climate anxiety that’s so severe it disrupts their daily lives.
All the while, technological innovation threatened to upend the world as we know it.
This year, AI entrepreneurs were hauled before Congress to answer for the seismic shocks headed our way as a result of automation and deepfakes.
But while seeing a year in review makes you feel like you’re living through end times, just remember that you’re balancing the burden of the world on your shoulders.
In the age of social media, we’re not just hearing about devastation on the news or reading about it in the newspaper the next day — we’re seeing it live-streamed in real-time.
Being plugged into world news is a net positive. Thanks to modern media, less suffering goes unnoticed and fewer injustices go unscrutinized.
We’re all better off for being better informed — but we should also acknowledge that there’s nothing normal about being barraged with the sociopolitical and emotional burdens of humanity as a whole.
It’s taking a toll.
Zoom and doom
So-called doomscrolling through gloomy news has been linked to poor physical and mental health, and excessive news consumption in the wake of tragedy causes acute stress.
This appears to especially be the case with young digital natives who have been saddled with terrible news and catastrophic predictions for their entire lives.
Is it any wonder that, according to analysis by Dr. Jean Twenge, the proportion of 12th-graders who agree with the statement “it’s hard to have hope for the world” has nearly doubled since 2000 and now exceeds 40%?
Zoomers have understandably felt they’re living in the end days since their first days.
But it’s not just young people — in an age of rapidly changing media technology, we all need to stop and consider how it’s impacting us. It’s worth zooming out for a minute to gain perspective.
Had you lived in any other region in the world in the year 1000, you’d have had no clue that the Maya Empire was crumbling to the ground.
Had you been in the Americas or most of Asia or Africa in the 14th century, you would have been entirely unaware that the Black Death was ravaging 40% to 60% of the European population at that very moment.
And for most of human history, you wouldn’t even have any idea if a fire or a fight broke out in the nearest village or tribe.
Plus, when you’re stuck in a doomscrolling loop, you lose sight of the good news — and there’s lots of it out there.
Good news, too
Life expectancy is the highest it’s ever been. Child labor is on the decline. Poverty levels are at alltime lows. There were big breakthroughs in the treatment of Alzheimer’s this year. And New York City officials finally found a way to get rid of rats!
We 21st-century humans are interconnected to a supernatural degree — and we should remember that it’s both a blessing and a burden.
After a year of bad news, it’s time to take a breath and maintain some perspective.