Our primal minds are all about survival and when it feels uncomfortable, it spins out of control to get us to act. It feels something is wrong deep down in our gut and it wants the feeling to go away, so it cycles through problems, stressors, and regrets to try to determine the threat causing the feeling.
Has this ever happened to you?
The city noise penetrates my sleep and I wake, alone, feeling a foreboding, an unease, a fear deep in my gut. Flashes of incomplete thoughts play in front of my mind’s eye. The feeling in my gut gets worse as its knots tighten, my mind cycles, and fear grows.
Rent is Due
Tasks not done
On my own
Failures play out
It takes time for the cobwebs to clear. For the generator to turn on and kick start my conscious mind. As my consciousness comes back online and my eyes begin to focus, I stretch and my tummy rumbles – I’m hungry not scared.
Analyze the Situation
When we consciously analyze the situation. Break it down. We discover things are not as scary as we thought and nowhere near as stressful because we can act on a solution, so why is our society filled with so much fear?
A poll by the US National Mental Health Association found that 85% of Americans believe that the USA will experience a terrorist attack in the near future and 41% said they feel fear (Widmeyer Research & Polling, 2004). There are countless polls and studies proving we are living in a time of heightened fear, all one needs to do is Google fear stats to find proof that we are living in fear.
Media Feeds Fear
One of the reasons is our daily dose of media consumption, whether it is traditional media outlets or social media. To increase viewership news media makes stories sound as dramatic, threatening and urgent as possible. The result is 24/7 drama and danger, “Contributing to what George Gerbner called ‘the mean world syndrome’ – the sense we have, based on a steady supply of frightening and threatening news, that the world is a riskier place than it actually is.” (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). We carry our news in our hands and talk about it on our screens. It is everywhere and the media has profited from a decrease in censorship and an increase in consumption.
The news used to only be reported at 6:00PM, then the early news became a thing, and then the morning news was created. In 1980 CNN brought 24–7 news into our homes with images of war, crime, and dangers from around the globe. In 1991, the Gulf War coverage catapulted CNN into a news media leader and people got used to having anytime access to breaking coverage. The global reach of stories shared by CNN and other news outlets soon shrunk the globe bringing disasters from all over the world into our living rooms. Suddenly, when something happened in a large city, people started believing it could happen down the street from their homes, no matter how far they live from the event.
Censorship Relaxation Increased Fear
Censorship used to ensured kids did not see images on TV. Today, everything is available to kids online and on their TV screens.
Children no longer feel safe. After Columbine, the number of school shootings has increased and the safety features put in place to ensure their safety, makes the fear all too real for them. Thirty years ago, we had fire drills. Today, schools have lockdown drills in case of a shooter in or near the school and too many of them have experience real lockdowns. Not to mention the schools with metal detectors and armed security guards telling kids everyday, school isn’t a safe place.
Now with Covid, schools are monitoring temperatures, which means everyday these kids are faced with a test to see if they are sick. It brings the reality of the possibility home every day.
Covid Increased Fear
The Covid Pandemic is killing over 1000 people a day on average in the USA and over 5000 a day globally. It has affected the lifestyles of everyone on the planet as government bodies try to balance the economic needs of the country with its public health safety.
Extremists use fear-based arguments to make their cases for and against the need to wear masks, shut down businesses, and stay home. These opposing views create an environment of confusion, mistrust, and fear as people try to understand what is the real threat. For example, a person living in Manhattan logically has a higher risk of catching Covid than a person living in a small town in Northern Canada, however, one only needs to look to Social Media to see the perceived fear of infection for some is just as high in the small town as it is in the city.
Social Unrest Creates Fear
Around the world cities have experienced violent protests, ideological murders, and terrorist attacks. From Hong Kong to Poland protesters are clashing with government law enforcement and protesters on the other side of the issues. The images and stories streaming into our homes from around the world can make it seem like the world is on fire and we are all in danger of losing something. If not our lives, our livelihoods, our savings, our future dreams and we become scared of these forces outside of our control.
Ideological revolutionaries and rebels have used attacks on citizens to gain support throughout time. Whether it was the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the IRA, the Cuban Revolution, or the Arab Spring, ideological divisions have resulted in violent attacks to insight fear in the populous and gain support for both sides of the conflict.
Unlike in the past, today’s social protest movements are global and widespread with news outlets bringing the stories into our handheld devices.
Fear Mongering Politics
The biggest political election took place in November, 2020 and the fear of uncertainty is still high in 2021. Fear mongering by political leaders is nothing new, one only has to look to history to see how leaders use fear to get what they want. The difference from historical power plays is the consequences for those who try to upset the status quo. In history, if one upset the Pope, the King, or the Dictator, the consequences were dire. Today, criticizing the powers that be is as common as breathing.
The 20th Century brought a new kind of fear to the populations of the free world – story of fear. Propaganda was perfected by Goebbels, Hitler’s PR guy. After World War 2, propaganda in both the western world and the USSR planted seeds of fear of nuclear annihilation into every citizen, no matter how young. After the fall of the USSR, terrorism became the new threat. Today, four generations have been brought up in fear based propaganda societies.
Is the Threat Real?
When faced with a fear-based message or situation we must ask ourselves, is the threat real or is it smoke and mirrors?
In his article The Consequences of Fear, written for the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, David Ropeik looks at how perceived fears of modern society affect our health.
He mentions a study by Sapolsky which found “constant fear causes a weakened immune system, increased cardiovascular damage, gastrointestinal problems, fertility issues, brain damage, and a list of other health issues.” (Sapolsky, 1998) His articles goes on to include a study by McEwen which found ….
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