July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Don't overdose on economic news (01/16/2009)
Editorial
The trouble with anxiety is that it feeds upon itself.
Something unsettles us, we fret about it, and before too long we're simply anxious about being anxious.
That's the situation facing Americans after a series of shockwaves have rolled through the global economy.
The shockwaves are real. Only a Pollyanna would minimize them at this point. But there's a very real possibility that if we let our anxiety run unchecked, we'll make matters worse.
America has faced recessions and economic difficulty before, and while the scope of the current problems is huge, there's another factor at work this time around.
Today we live in a world with a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week news cycle, with multiple cable TV news networks.
And we live in a world with the Internet, which at times like this can seem like one enormous echo chamber.
Recessions in the 1970s and 1980s were difficult, but they weren't objects of obsession.
These days, it's difficult to escape from the talking heads and prognosticators - most of whom were wrong as recently as six months ago - and the crawl of the stock ticker moves relentlessly across the bottom of your TV screen.
For those of us in the news business, reporting on the economy is part of our job. It's what we do.
But a word of advice: If you want to reduce your own anxiety level, put yourself on a strict diet of economic news.
Follow the economy just enough to keep up to date, but limit your intake. Change the channel, find a basketball game to watch, go to a movie or a performance at Arts Place, pick up a book.
Do that, and in a very real way, by stopping the cycle of anxiety feeding upon itself, you'll be doing the economy some good.
The less anxious we are as a nation, the more optimistic we are about the future. And the more optimistic we are about the future, the sooner the economy will recover. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]
Something unsettles us, we fret about it, and before too long we're simply anxious about being anxious.
That's the situation facing Americans after a series of shockwaves have rolled through the global economy.
The shockwaves are real. Only a Pollyanna would minimize them at this point. But there's a very real possibility that if we let our anxiety run unchecked, we'll make matters worse.
America has faced recessions and economic difficulty before, and while the scope of the current problems is huge, there's another factor at work this time around.
Today we live in a world with a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week news cycle, with multiple cable TV news networks.
And we live in a world with the Internet, which at times like this can seem like one enormous echo chamber.
Recessions in the 1970s and 1980s were difficult, but they weren't objects of obsession.
These days, it's difficult to escape from the talking heads and prognosticators - most of whom were wrong as recently as six months ago - and the crawl of the stock ticker moves relentlessly across the bottom of your TV screen.
For those of us in the news business, reporting on the economy is part of our job. It's what we do.
But a word of advice: If you want to reduce your own anxiety level, put yourself on a strict diet of economic news.
Follow the economy just enough to keep up to date, but limit your intake. Change the channel, find a basketball game to watch, go to a movie or a performance at Arts Place, pick up a book.
Do that, and in a very real way, by stopping the cycle of anxiety feeding upon itself, you'll be doing the economy some good.
The less anxious we are as a nation, the more optimistic we are about the future. And the more optimistic we are about the future, the sooner the economy will recover. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]
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