How should we approach negative news in the media? A 'mindful' and 'harmonious' consumption of negative news by users might be an answer

The paper addresses how users should approach increasingly prevalent negative news. It situates the problem in human negativity bias and media economics that favor negative content, noting that negative information is processed more thoroughly and attracts engagement. The purpose is to propose an adaptive approach—mindful and harmonious consumption—instead of fixed limits or quotas of positive news. The importance lies in mitigating psychological harms (e.g., anxiety, distress) while preserving the informational and societal value of negative news, recognizing users’ varied capacities and states across time.

The authors review evidence that negative sentiment in news has risen and that negative content attracts more attention and sharing (e.g., headlines trend negative; consumers share negative news ~1.91× more than positive). They summarize psychological impacts of negative news and doomscrolling, including associations with anxiety, irritation, misanthropy, reduced self-protective behaviors, and risk-taking. Recommendations to balance media negativity with positive coverage or to limit exposure are critiqued: fixed positive quotas may be impractical or distort reality, and avoidance can reduce awareness and effective responses to societal problems. They highlight the informational and societal value of negative news (learning from threats, signaling effects, catalyzing collective action, self-transcendent experiences). They discuss evidence that “how” media is used matters more than “how much,” citing the Goldilocks hypothesis, weak or negligible links between time and mental health, differences between compulsive vs habitual use, and harmonious vs obsessive passion. They note coping styles on social media (socioemotional vs problem-focused) yield different outcomes, and mindful social media use correlates with lower distress and conspiracism.

- Conceptual proposal: Users should adopt mindful awareness and harmonious, self-regulated engagement with negative news, adjusting exposure based on current psychological readiness rather than adhering to fixed time limits. - Practical guidance: A detailed mindful-harmonious consumption task is outlined (pre-, during-, and post-exposure self-checks; attention to source credibility, emotional intensity, bodily cues; autonomous decisions to engage or disengage). - Media use quality over quantity: Prior work suggests frequency alone is a poor predictor of harm; compulsive/obsessive engagement relates to negative outcomes, whereas habitual/harmonious engagement does not. - Societal and informational value: Avoiding negative news can undermine learning about threats, informed decision-making, and collective action; negative news may sometimes elicit self-transcendent experiences and substantial helping behaviors. - Pilot data: Recently collected pilot evidence indicates a negative association between mindful social media use and problematic consumption of negative news on social media among 973 Iranian adolescents (Pearson r = −0.291, p < 0.01), measured via the Mindful Use of Social Media Scale and the Social Media Doomscrolling Scale. - Sharing behavior: Negative online news articles are shared more on social media (~1.91× more than positive news), reinforcing exposure cycles.

The authors argue that fixed exposure limits or quotas of positive news are ill-suited to the dynamic, individual nature of users’ psychological states and to periods dominated by negative events. A mindful-harmonious approach directly addresses the research question by providing an adaptive, user-centered framework that maintains agency, supports critical processing, and preserves the benefits of staying informed while reducing vulnerability to distress and dysfunctional reactions. By emphasizing agency and flexible engagement, users can avoid both compulsive overexposure and rigid avoidance, fostering more moderate worldviews and healthier media relationships. The approach has potential to mitigate harms associated with doomscrolling and to maintain readiness for informed, prosocial responses to societal issues.

This Perspective contributes a conceptual framework and practical guidance for mindful and harmonious consumption of negative news, prioritizing engagement quality over quantity and user agency. It suggests that empowering consumers to monitor and regulate exposure in line with their psychological readiness may reduce adverse effects while sustaining the informational and societal benefits of negative news. Future research should develop measurement instruments to assess mindful awareness during negative news exposure, design and test interventions and tasks for mindful-harmonious consumption, and conduct empirical studies to evaluate outcomes across diverse populations and contexts.

The argument is based on indirect theoretical and empirical frameworks from broader media use literature; there is no direct empirical evidence yet on mindful-harmonious negative news consumption and its outcomes. The reported pilot data are correlational, from a specific adolescent sample, and may not generalize. Individual differences and contextual variability further limit universal prescriptions.