“Consumer magazine brands provide the most positive trusted environments and audiences in media”, a view by Robert Ffitch, Chief Strategy Officer at Hearst UK

We live in a predominantly negative world.  

The 2017 Gallup Emotions report stated that 2017 was the world’s most miserable year in decades. And sorry, but 2019 looks on course to beat that. 

Brexit, Trump, knife crime, a greater division between the haves and the have nots, terrorism, mental health, discrimination, food banks, obesity, drugs and a fragile economy. They are all contributing to a greater sense of anxiety and concern. This is fuelled further by our 24-hour news society which exacerbates the bad news day in day out. This is not just perception, a study by Queen Mary University discovered that negative news

coverage went up 24 per cent between 1974 to 2013. The rise of Social Media hasn’t helped either. A study in 2017 by behavioural scientist, Clarissa Silva, states that 50 per cent of people said social media had a negative effect on their relationships and 60 per cent saying it had impacted on their self-esteem. 

Whilst the Edelman Trust barometer states that 63 per cent of consumers do not know if the news they read is real or fake anymore.  

Negativity is growing all around us and sadly, as humans, we don’t respond well to this. We tend to remember the bad news more than the good. We store negative news in a more accessible place in our brains. We are our own worst enemies. This is termed as the negative availability heuristic.

So much so, only 4 per cent of us believe that the world is improving, when in fact on many levels it actually is. We are in danger of being a half empty nation. But do not despair, as there are some beacons of positivity in our world and these beacons now have an even greater role to play in our lives than ever before.

For more visit: https://payattention.media/viewpoint/beacons-of-positivity/