Depressing news

Biblioklept
Biblioklept Online Community Member Posts: 636 Trailblazing
in Coffee lounge

Occasionally I load Microsoft Edge instead of my normal browser and the loading page is just a reel of bad news, does anyone else get fed up with it?

For example I loaded it just now and these are the leading articles:

  • Why Generation Alpha are being raised as Content, not Children
  • Doctor’s warning as …
  • Cancer: 15 foods to avoid, according to data
  • NHS warns symptom in your neck might mean…
  • Signs you could have a heart attack that happen a month before
  • Cut back on 2 types of fish to …
  • Why invest in gold in 2026
  • How to live longer
  • Indian on alert following Nipah virus
  • Martin Lewis issues warning to…

And that's without all the actual crazy stuff going on in the world!!

(I know I can change my homepage but not everyone will know that or be able to!)

Comments

  • Rosie_Scope
    Rosie_Scope Posts: 7,936 Scope Online Community Coordinator

    Absolutely @Biblioklept! It's so draining. I've tried really hard to make sure my internet experience is more pleasant now. For example, feeding my social media algorithms endless content about cute things and silly humour so it shows me more of that than the bad stuff 😁

    But occasionally these things pop up and it's so depressing! The impact on vulnerable people must be pretty rough too. If you're already feeling a bit rubbish, seeing all this can't give you much hope for the state of the world.

  • SwiftFox
    SwiftFox Posts: 447 Empowering

    The BBC do this all the time on their news channel and website

  • michael57
    michael57 Online Community Member Posts: 2,206 Championing

    Haha the internet ban on kids age should be lifted to about 100 my dawnie watches the weather every day then asks me what it will do I just tell her it will rain somewhere in the world never understood doom scrolling learning about something is fine but each to there own

  • OverlyAnxious
    OverlyAnxious Online Community Member Posts: 5,725 Championing

    I use Edge every day. Turned off this unnecessary rubbish immediately. 🙂

  • MW123
    MW123 Scope Member Posts: 1,986 Championing

    @Biblioklept, thank you for sharing this. It genuinely made me laugh because I know exactly what you mean. These days it feels as though the moment we open a browser we are greeted by a full list of catastrophes before we’ve even put the kettle on.

    Life used to be wonderfully uneventful before computers. My biggest crisis years ago was running low on milk and standing at the window in my dressing gown, silently begging the milkman to appear before the children woke up.

    That was peak drama in my life prior to all this. I certainly wasn’t being met at 7am by headlines insisting I might have a heart attack, catch a rare virus, and  should consider a gold investment opportunity all before 9am.

  • SwiftFox
    SwiftFox Posts: 447 Empowering
    edited February 1

    I don't think it's just vulnerable people that's fed up of this forced fed death syndrome rubbish, if it's not on a website then it's on the news, if it's not the news then it's adverts. Time they stopped.

  • 66Mustang
    66Mustang Online Community Member Posts: 15,399 Championing
    edited February 2

    I have an interesting anecdote about kids and internet literacy

    I have a neighbour who is about 85 and she "went online" about 5 years ago so is still relatively new to it. She's a perfectly able (given her age) and mentally sound, independent practical person

    When she goes online she does stuff - makes "mistakes" - that lots of kids make because as a latecomer to the internet she's got the same experience as someone that age who had the internet since they were a young child

    e.g. she's rather outspoken and will write her views on stuff not realising that it's there with her name and photo next to it for anyone to read; also she falls for those clickbaity adverts like "Are you retired? You must click here!"

    She's spent longer in the school of hard knocks than anyone else I know (not just because of her age) but it's funny how someone so streetwise can be so naive online – it really is a totally different skill that you have to pick up… in the same way the internet doesn't prepare you for real life, real life doesn't prepare you for the internet

  • Rosie_Scope
    Rosie_Scope Posts: 7,936 Scope Online Community Coordinator

    That's so interesting @66Mustang, it's a whole other world!

Categories