With the internet and its widespread accessibility, many of us have front-row seats to widespread suffering and death across the globe for the first time in history, even when we are not directly affected.

We’re living in what scholars describe as a “polycrisis” – a set of interconnected crises that compound and intensify one another. Climate change intensifies displacement and conflict, economic precarity fuels political extremism and public health emergencies expose structural inequality.

As a result, the future can feel more uncertain than ever. If you feel overwhelmed by the constant influx of bad news and find it difficult to focus on day-to-day tasks, that response is understandable.

But research in psychology and cognitive science suggests there are ways to fight back against this and reclaim your attention

Business model of outrage

Developing a critical awareness of how digital systems operate is an important first step. This sense of overwhelm is deliberately amplified by the way digital platforms and their profit-driven algorithms are designed.

Many of us go online to cope with stress or to escape, but the content that captures our attention most effectively often makes it worse.

Content that provokes anger, fear or moral outrage generates higher engagement. Negative headlines tend to attract more clicks than positive ones, creating incentives for media outlets to push content that increases engagement.

One study found that social media users are nearly twice as likely to share negative news articles that evoke strong negative emotions. Each interaction – a like, share or comment – signals to algorithms that similar content should be shown again. Increased engagement also reinforces users’ continued posting of negative material.

The result is a positive feedback loop in which emotionally charged content is amplified, often leading to the spread of misinformation and sowing of conflict.

Brain on 24/7 threat

Part of why we are so drawn to outrage lies in human neurobiology. Studies show that we choose to read more negative or cynically framed news stories even when positive stories are also available.

Much of this is just how humans have been wired: we evolved to pay attention to the most threatening stimuli. From a very early age, we show a biased attention toward spiders, snakes and threatening faces, which activate an acute stress response from the sympathetic nervous system and trigger a fight-or-flight response.